Season Opener Post game
by Kent Wilson on Oct 1, 2009 9:53 PM PDT
32 comments
Well, the Flames escaped with a 5-3 win, but it was clear by the end of the game that the team still has a ways to go before the theoretical defensive rebirth under Brent Sutter is realized. While Calgary came away with two points, they were fundamentally outplayed in the second half of the game and it was only a potent power play and some good goaltending by Kipper that kept them in the win column.
The game began well enough, with the Flames drawing the first 3 penalties and scoring on two of them. Mark Giordano and Rene Bourque hooked up on both of them and the Flames looked like the better squad. That trend carried into the 2nd, where the Flames 4th line frequently outplayed the opposition, culminating in a Brandon Prust tally.
Things fell apart from then on, however. The penalties started going the other way and the Canucks started to take the play to the Flames at 5on5 besides. In the third, the Flames first line of Iginla, Jokinen and Moss - who had been silent all night - become an obvious liability until Sutter broke them up later in the period. Vancouver was far and away the better team for the remainder of the game and ended up outshooting the Flames 42-22. Kipper had a puck squeak through him in the Burrows goal, but was better than solid otherwise.
Overall, there was some good signs from some of the foot soldiers (Gio, Bourque, the 4th line), but some of the concerns I raised in the pre-season were in evidence tonight. The first line did nothing at ES through 2 periods and then were overwhelmed by the Sedins when the going got tough. Staffan Kronwall looked every bit like a 7th defenseman as well.
It was good to break the curse, but the Flames will have to be much better going forward if they expect to come up with more wins. Sutter's expressed goal as coach is to limit shots and goals against and the club failed at that task utterly this evening.
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It was good to break the curse, but the Flames will have to be much better going forward if they expect to come up with more wins. Sutter’s expressed goal as coach is to limit shots and goals against and the club failed at that task utterly this evening.
Holy Sh*t is this ever true. At least one of the 3 ‘fallen stars’ from last year showed signs of life. Kipper was good, Phaneuf was alright actually, but Iggy…and the first line. sigh….Oh boy.
D for 3 and now goal for 21 years, of course I'm a goaltender apologist.
Your last sentence hit the nail on the head.
I’m wondering about the chemistry on the top line – mainly Jokinen. He was brought in because of Keenan, and Mike is long gone. Would they have put themselves on the salary cap tightrope if B. Sutter was the head coach? Me thinks not. I’m hoping for success – but I wonder if Olli will finish the year as a Flame; dangled at the trade deadline. Any thoughts out there from a local?
Loved the old jerseys, boy do they bring back memories. Thanks to who posted the link to atdhe.com to watch the games live on the web, for us living outside of Canada. I guess the tradeoff from viewing the free CBC feed is you have to put up with Milbury between periods. Can’t believe McKeon of Yahoo Sports has the Canucks ranked #2, a “darkhorse” to win it all. I can’t stop laughing.
by Calgarian in SJ on Oct 1, 2009 11:38 PM PDT reply actions
As tempting as it is to make Keenan the sole bad guy in the matter, Darryl Sutter liked Jokinen as well. I’m not sure there’s much hope in moving him. If the Flames were out of the race in March, it would be easier to dump a pending UFA, because you wouldn’t need to necessarily take back a player that was like for like. In Calgary’s case, I don’t see anyone lining up to trade them a number one center that would be better, and would take Jokinen in the bargain.
Good summary, Kent. Vancouver exposed some weakness, or maybe more accurately, reinforced my cynicism about some weaknesses the Flames possess. I’m not ready to write Iginla off by any means, but in 07/08 the Flames let Tanguay, Nolan and Conroy do more of the heavy lifting, and Iginla had a very good year. Last year, against the same sort of opposition, he wasn’t nearly as good, possibly because he slipped a bit, but also I’d say in large part because he rarely played with Langkow. The Flames could put them back together and have them face the second string, but who would carry the load against the top tier of other teams? Jokinen’s inability, shown over several years with multiple teams, to go head to head with the best and not bleed chances is a hell of a fix for a team that wants him to be the main guy in the middle. They were certainly found wanting against the Sedins last night.
Kipper was good, though. If you’d told me to guess in advance which goalie would have which set of GA/SA last night, I would have gotten it backwards. Getting Sarich back would be good. There’s a reason Kronwall couldn’t make the Leafs full time for 4 years running.
by Robert Cleave on Oct 2, 2009 3:13 AM PDT up reply actions
Ding Ding Ding!
I was going to save this rant for later but…
Why is it so few people (in this org and in hockey circles in general) don’t seem to realize that Jokinen isn’t a “#1 center”? His numbers have come via favorable circumstances for years – weaker opposition and lots of PP time. How is it the Flames scouts – and Darryl Sutter – didn’t notice this before acquiring the guy? And how is it that the Iginla/Jokinen pairing looked terrible together last season, average at best in the pre-season and yet here they are again?
I know coaches like to have their top 6 at ES mirror their top 2 PP units for convenience but, as I’ve asserted before over and over, if Iginla is going to see the big boys, Jokinen can’t be his center at ES. The good news is, I think last night got us one step closer to Langkow moving up.
As for Iginla, I’m not going to let him off the hook either. He used to be the type of player that could take on the big boys with just about anyone on his line, but it really looks like those days are over. He was dreadful last night and it mirrored his struggles against tough teams from last year (especialy Vancouver and Chicago). The decline may be real and, as you say Robert, either the Flames will have to shelter him or give him the best linemates possible in order to get him into the black again.
Hey Kent, I was curious if you were going to be tracking scoring chances for the Flames this year. Feel free to answer here or at GoH or cause me great distress and not answer at all. Also, your boys looked poor in the third but at least Kipper didn’t fall apart.
Scott,
Yeah I’m going to look at scoring chances this season. I have a brief description of what I consider a scoring chance in the Final pre-season pre-game post I believe.
Well darnit then. I should have just read that. At any rate, thanks for letting me know. Hopefully there is enough support for the project that we can get an entire division’s worth of games. I think there would be some interesting things to learn in that.
by Scott Reynolds on Oct 2, 2009 10:08 AM PDT up reply actions
It should be noted that the Flames PP goals were scored by the second unit both times and that the first unit – aside from a Jokinen post shot – were completely stymied. Jokinen + Iginla were at least effective with the man advantage in the pre-season, but they didn’even manage that last night.
The play by play seems to be stripped off of NHL.com. It has the same quirk of not showing distances for missed shots. Still handy to have it though and a lot more accessible than the NHL website.
I really like the shot location thing and I want to know how to get that from an HTML file or something in order to build a database. Do you know how to access this?
by R O on Oct 2, 2009 9:28 AM PDT up reply actions
So… I see internet folk are going to make Jokinen their goat this year.
Frankly, I thought he played the best out of the top liners last night… Not that he was great but I barely noticed Moss on the ice and Iginla played poorly. It’s just one game but I think I want some more speed on that top line, maybe give ‘em another game or two together but if it still ain’t working Moss out for Glencross at ES and keep Moss on the PP?
Could this be
the season which Kipper actually will play like the Kipper we remembered?
Cant agree more regarding Jokinen, just can’t play the Top center. I know Langkow probably can’t be your typical #1 Center as well, but at least we know he’ll play better with Iggy.
Speaking of Iggy, I still have faith in him, I still think he is the one that will bring us into the promise land.
Other Concerns
-Regehr looked average at best for much of the night. I thought he got outworked on the boards and both penalties were deserved.
-What is the over/under on the number of times Jokinen is going to make a blind pass from behind the opposition net, to no one in particular, before it leads to an odd man rush or break away going the other way. He did this 2 or 3 times in the last preseason game and two times last night.
-Kipper made some outstanding saves, but I still felt that he looked uncomfortable with the puck a couple of times, particularly on Edler’s big point shots.
-It really looked like our team looked fatigued in the later going. In particular I noticed Glencross standing around a lot later in the game when he had been flying earlier.
Pluses
-much has been made of the Flames lack of scoring depth. I don’t think I have seen anyone make the case that some of that scoring depth will be made up from the addition of Bouwmeester, an improved Phaneuf and a full season of Giordano. I think we got the first glance at that tonight.
-Dawes looked good to my eye. Got robbed once and made a couple of pretty good feeds that just didn’t pan out.
-Pardy looked better than anytime I saw him in preseason. I know Kent wasn’t high on Kronwall, but when compared to other seventh defencemen we have run in recent years (Eriksson, Hale, maybe even Vandermeer) I can’t say he is downgrade.
I think we were fairly lucky to win that game. Flames were dominant in the first but Vancouver was more dominant in the third. Not sure how much of that was playing to the score. I’m not torn up about it, Vancouver had more than their fair share of lucky bounces last year so comeuppance is most welcome.
It’s only one game so I’m going to hold back on proclamations on how good our players are or aren’t. Two individual plays that impressed me:
- Giordano side-stepping the Vancouver forward at the blue-line (I think it was on a PP) and getting a shot through.
- Bouwmeester’s long stick check on Sedin in the second period. The guy’s got a long reach.
Side note: that high-sticking call on Regehr in the second was a bit strange considering his stick looked to be level with the ice at the point of contact. It did make contact with the guy’s face though, and in a split second I guess the call could be justified.
I agree with this assessment and also would say that one game is not worthy of judgment of either Jokinen or Iggy. I also agree with another post that of the three Jokinen certainly wasn’t the worst and it could be argued he was the better of any of them. With Kipper, I think one game in and he deserves credit, not saying that the wheels can’t fall off tomorrow. However, goaltending IMO is a little more game-by-game than the other five positions and all you can ask for is that you have the better performance of the two teams. Last night, Kipper was by far better, and against the ‘best in the world’ no less. That is think is worth noting. One game at a time….keep it going against Edm.
I also remember both plays you pointed out and on both I thought to myself, damn, that is exactly what we were missing last year.
Lastly re: someone else’s comment of Kronwall. I also think he wasn’t great, but didn’t look worse than Vandemeer to me. Why doesn he have to wear 8 though. Too many bad memories of Ericsson.
D for 3 and now goal for 21 years, of course I'm a goaltender apologist.
I’m not judging Jokinen based on a single game. I’m judging him based on the end of the last season and a large volume of work he’s put together in his NHL career. There’s all sorts of data that says Jokinen doesn’t excel against tough match-ups.
I don’t know what you guys are seeing that are complimentary towards Jokinen, but he was mediocre to my eye at best last night. He was -1, he got a penalty and single shot in net. In addition, his play in the zone to Iginla that lead to the Burrows goal (soft, needless pass) was awful.
One game is not an evaluation
I’ve never seen such a mixed up win-we won without a number 1 line and we were out-performed in the third period-Goaltending won it. There isn’t going to be a parade up the Red Mile, just sighs of relief. Its fair to comment on a lack-lustre performance by the million dollar men but one game is not an evaluation. If this trend continues I’d say trade or deal if possible-how about a first round pick and Cap space to aquire a decent prospect that won’t break the bank. Lets say a two-week evaluation, I remember Jolkinen being streaky-he can get 10 points one week and then two the next-he is sporatic but can have multiple goal games.
Nathan Smith just went down and Jack Skille-both first rounders-make a deal for one of these type of players because when McGratton is ready he can play on the first line. I’d promote Dustin Boyd to second line anyways and get Langkow back with Iginlia and Borque asap. In the long-run bring Lundmark back up and part ways with a veteran for a draft pick.
Prust
One other player I was very, very happy with was Prust. He didn’t need to fight, because I don’t think there were any serious opportunities. As well, the Flames were the more physical team last night, so there was no need to go with anyone. This to me, just reinforces the needlessness of McGratton (who we know would have been slowly lumbering around looking for a scrap while the Canucks would have been tying the game)
Instead Prust scores, and the game winner no less, and puts what I hope to be the first stake in the heart of the pugilist oaf. If Prust can keep this up, smart hard hockey, with the odd tussle in there, he can (hopefully) make it nearly impossible to see any need to dress McGratton. A 4th line scrapper with multiple ways of contributing may have just been one of the primary factors that earned us two points last night, and that’s good.
It’s not that I don’t like you Brian, I just don’t fully support your one-dimensional career choices
D for 3 and now goal for 21 years, of course I'm a goaltender apologist.
Brent Sutter
I think it will take a minimum of 10 games to get these guys operating smoothly under Sutter’s system. To expect them to be firing on all cylinders in the first game is not realistic. He certainly has the fourth line going as noted repeatedly above. I don’t think Iginla ever plays enough minutes in pre-season to get the dust off. I look for the Flames to be .500ish for the first month and then be very good – Top five in league – top 4 in West.
I agree with you completely that the new system will take some time. Also inevitably, there will be players who excel (or at least see their game improve) under the new system and those who see the opposite. Hopefully there are not many of the latter.
However, I will challenge your idea of the Flames being .500ish for the first month, not in the sense that you may or may not be correct, but instead with the idea that if Calgary sees themselves as a ‘contender’ or an elite team they cannot, I repeat, cannot stumble out of the gate this year.
The teams schedule in March is killer. They play 12 games this Oct. Then 14, 14, 15, 7, 15, 5.
In March the Flames play Minn, x3, Det x2, Bos, Van, Wash, SJ, NJ and Ana. That’s 11 tough games, one fewer than this month’s total. I’ll be quite disappointed / worried if the Flames don’t finish Oct. with a record of 8-4 or better. .500 just won’t cut it.
One game down, and I’m already worried about the stretch drive…is that even healthy?
D for 3 and now goal for 21 years, of course I'm a goaltender apologist.
yes, they’re going with
holmström-datsyuk-franzen
bertuzzi-zetterberg-cleary
williams-filppula-leino
maltby-draper-abdelkader
bert made a patented giveaway at the opposite blue for kariyas gamewinner.
i think detroit is in a bit of trouble.
They are as long as they continue to play Bert in their top 6. How many good players is he going to have to drag down before coaches in the NHL realize he’s lousy?
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