Every game is a must win game in a 48 game season. If you’re the Flames, and you can even be bothered to win games against teams that are less than stellar, to put mildly, then you have no business even showing up, and post-season hopes are out the window. Maybe Pierre Lebrun is right, the ownership is doing everyone a disservice by dragging out this pathetic team till it’s ragged and lifeless.
Calgary certainly did have life versus the Avalanche at home who themselves were playing their second game is as many nights.
A lot of scoring chances from all sorts of different players from the 1st line on down. The only problem? Who cares if you generate scoring chances if you don’t score?
Calgary hit the board first with Hudler scoring his first as a Flames capping off a bang bang play with Stajan. The only problem with scoring first is you have to stay on the gas. Every time the Flames scored it was minutes until Colorado came back with an answer.
Calgary looks solid but,
the single greatest killer to this team is blown assignments in the defensive zone, or to put it another way, getting caught puckwatching.
Blair Jones and Chris Butler were victimized repeatedly for a total, by my count, of 3 goals. Preventable plays that put the team behind. Either Butler or Sarich will sit next game for certain, both put in terrible games. Jones will be out too assuming Beartschi can return to form soon, which he wont.
Most of the scoring was done by the Czech line with Stajan in the middle. All fun and games but irrelevant if you can’t play defensively. The foundation to any defence is the goalie, and Kiprusoff put in a lazy performance. Twice victimized on weak backhands, and another on the game winning goal he was soft on the post. He lacks focus and drive in this condensed season and if Kipper doesn’t get it together it will be a first found pick for this club come mid-March.
Next up, Chicago Saturday, a certain loss yet again against the unbeaten and NHL leading team.
