There are only so many words in the thesaurus for disgrace and we’ve used them all barely a third of the way through the NHL season.
The Columbus Blue Jackets now have 5 wins. That’s five wins total for the entire season up to and including tonight’s game. The Jackets are not a good hockey team. But on every other game night the Calgary Flames, as evidenced tonight, are worse than the worse hockey team in the league. If that’s not reason enough to pull the plug on deadweight I don’t know what is.
Lately ‘deadweight’ amounts to the top line with Jarome Iginla a minus night yet again and generating zero offensively, Tanguay putting around the outside, and Backlund who still hasn’t found his game feet. The Flames were so desperate for something that Iginla played third period shifts at center. Yea, the worse defensive player on the team playing center….the Flames coaching staff is not only desperate but they’re stupid too.
Calgary, a veteran team that’s supposedly still has trouble ‘buying into’ a system that’s 3 years old, still can’t figure out how to play 60 minutes of hockey. It’s years of the same sad sop story. Tonight they came unprepared and left Henrik Karlsson out to dry. Top line, with the game barely 10 minutes old, were already -2. Pathetic.
There’s no current answer for this team. With one game till American Thanksgiving they’re not going to sit in a playoff position (usually an indicator of who will make it in April). Feaster has done all he can with the pieces he’s been dealt. The team is still facing the bitter after effects of the Darryl Sutter era that’s crippled the team for years to come. Even a mega trade won’t shake this team, it’s, dare I say, rebuild time.
Road warriors tonight: the fourth line (how sad is that), and on the backend TJ Brodie continues to improve his game. St Louis up next in two days.
