Flames Versus Kings Gamethread
by Kent Wilson on Dec 17, 2009 6:23 PM PST
239 comments
Los Angeles Kings at Calgary Flames, Dec 17, 2009 6:30 PM PST
Given we've seen these guys a couple of times already, there isn't much more for I can say about them: the only real change is they've gone 8-1-1 since the teams last met and are amongst the best in the West currently. Some wonder why LA sticks with the mediocre Jonathan Quick in net when they seem to have a solid shot at a play-off run - he answered his critics somewhat recently, but perhaps the real reason is the club expects to hand over the reigns to former first round Jonthan Bernier in the near future. The kid is justifying the love this year, with a .942 SV% in 23 games played. If he continues in that vein, it makes sense not to give up any kind of assets for a stop-gap measure this year, especially because no one expects the Kings to challenge for the cup anyways.
Speaking of goalies, if there's anything worth celebrating in Flamesland right now, it's the work of Miikka Kiprusoff. I'd forgotten what it felt like to have goaltending that allowed a team to potentially win any game, regardless of the way the skaters perform. It's a good feeling.
Commence Regicide.
0 recs |
239 comments
|
Email
Print
Comments
“If (Kipper) played this year like he is this year, would you still be the coach of the Calgary Flames?”
Keenan: “I would be.”
You know what…that’s probably true.
If keenan was still the coach, kipper would not be playing like this.
by Resolute on Dec 17, 2009 6:52 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
Keenan is so right. If Kipper played like this last season (all season, mind), he’d still be coach.
Fuckin shame I guess. Keenan behind this Bertuzzi-less squad… we wouldn’t see Nystrom on the top line.
But the PP would still suck.
He played him on the top line in the playoffs, R O. And Joker-Iggy would still be putzing around.
But yeah, if Kipper plays like this and the team goes down the stretch with a full roster, they likely don’t finish 5th and get stuck against the worst match-up possible, so he’d still be around.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 6:40 PM PST up reply actions
In Oiler terms, this would have been the “MacBlender”, I believe.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 6:44 PM PST up reply actions
Phaneuf’s shot is amazing but I think he needs a few practices’ worth of lessons in learning when and how to fake it. If he gets around Handzus into the high slot there it’s a bonafide chance imo.
Once he cocked his stick, he never looked up to see if anyone was in the lane. Tools and the tool box aren’t really in sync for Dion some nights.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 6:50 PM PST up reply actions
The difference between the two PP’s is stark. Flames get little to no pressure or shots. LA spends the entire time in the offensive zone, gets multiple shots from various on the ice, moves the puck with relative ease…
Phaneuf takes a stupid penalty, and our special teams get humiliated again.
by Resolute on Dec 17, 2009 6:58 PM PST via mobile reply actions
Nice to see Van Masenhoven only calls checking from behind one way….
by Resolute on Dec 17, 2009 7:03 PM PST via mobile reply actions
Yup. Puck went right over the guy’s stick.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 7:09 PM PST up reply actions
Legit interference, though. That puck was 15 feet behind Doughty.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 7:13 PM PST up reply actions
Yeah, they had about 30 seconds left on the PP. The play itself was terrific, crazy timing or no.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 7:17 PM PST up reply actions
Magic 8-ball says, “Ask me again later”.
It’s the Flame PP. We don’t know, and neither do they.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 7:20 PM PST up reply actions
Cant believe Phaneuf finally got one through.
by Resolute on Dec 17, 2009 7:20 PM PST via mobile reply actions
I’m more likely to become a stathead, lol.
In other news, Edmonton is terrible.
by Resolute on Dec 17, 2009 7:28 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
Btw, bookies have us as a 55-45 favorite on neutral ice.
Flames didn’t look abysmal, which is a step forward.
One bad shift and one bad pk, otherwise I thought we mostly controlled the play.
by Resolute on Dec 17, 2009 7:30 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
Corsi was +4 CGY.
One guess which line was in the red?
All three of them were 0/5 EV shots on goal.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 7:30 PM PST up reply actions
Yeah. This is why I wonder if the search for a left winger on that line is forest for the trees stuff. You might have a better chance of finding a unicorn than a player that can make those two hold up their end of the bargain in a P v P situation.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 7:33 PM PST up reply actions
Jokinen is the centre on the line, right? Puck is deep, he should be providing strong support but instead he’s the high man. Result is sustained pressure against .
Heard that line before?
i hate retaliation for clean hits. its become so commonplace.
Spreading that Calgary Flames, Montreal Expos, The U, and Orlando Magic love.
That seems to be the modern way.
Unrelated, did you have a chance to see “The U”. I’ve heard good things.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 7:59 PM PST up reply actions
It was awesome.
As a graduate of The U, it made me proud. Those teams in the 80s defined college football as we know it today. I forgot just how much of a badass Jimmy Johnson was.
Spreading that Calgary Flames, Montreal Expos, The U, and Orlando Magic love.
Excellent. It’s on up here Saturday right before the Flames-Nashville game. People were falling all over themselves at EDSBS praising it, and I knew you were a ‘Cane, so I figured you’d be good to ask. I’m looking forward to it. Those ’80’s teams were a blast to watch.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 8:06 PM PST up reply actions
Yeah you’ll be amazed. Its an impressive story and the documentary is good. Same guy who did Cocaine Cowboys. You’ll have to tell me what you think of it. What channel is it airing on up there? TSN?
Spreading that Calgary Flames, Montreal Expos, The U, and Orlando Magic love.
Yes, TSN. Cocaine Cowboys 2 is in the hopper as well, I gather. The first one was good stuff.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 8:12 PM PST up reply actions
That’s where the center is supposed to go. Also, being deep doesn’t help if you glance at the puck and skate away from your man.
But I understand your point.
I’m not saying that every player should crash down, it all depends on how the way you play best. .. but Iggy had success when he was coming down, engaging the body, getting position, and carrying the puck out with the other guy hookin’ him form behind…
lately, he doesn’t want to do the work… and jokinen is great at crashing a small bit, and lifting a stick and picking a pocket. you can’t do that when you are 70 feet from every player on the ice.
What a period by Giordano. It was a decent one overall until the Kings came on at the end there. Chances were again 5-5.
At least the first line actually generated something in that period.
obviously this makes me happy. sad that i was unable to watch but happy nonetheless….
by walkinvisible on Dec 17, 2009 10:21 PM PST up reply actions
Jokinen’s been pretty strong on the button tonight hasn’t he, or is it just that his FO wins have been more noticeable then his losses?
Certainly no worse than the other options (aside from Bourque, but that’s another argument at this point I think).
That Keenan is one crazy motherfucker. Remember how pissed he seemed when Gio “injured himself” last season?
Now Giordano is being compared to physical specimens Dustin Brown and Cal Clutterbuck.
Unreal.
Meh. Different roles, different “takes”. Keenan knows the drill.
That stupid comment from him last year on that issue still annoys me though.
wait wait wait wait….. KEENAN was giving props to gio ?!?!?
by walkinvisible on Dec 17, 2009 10:22 PM PST up reply actions
Oh good God McKenzie busted out the Game Winning Goal stat.
One of these months I’m going to have to destroy that statistic to pieces. Pieces!
What the? Who scored? What happened? I missed it, I see from the comments above it was Lanks vs. Kopitar which is nice (although it’s no Lanks vs. Smyth, that would be kick-ass).
Dawes, on an excellent feed from Langkow.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 8:33 PM PST up reply actions
Wow. Wow. Why are all the forwards above the faceoff dots?
Wow. Holy fuck that si some bad play from the first line.
Haha. You can tell he doesn’t see much of the Flames. 2-0 was the signal to flip the switch.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 8:46 PM PST up reply actions
Flames turned into retards after that 2-0 goal.
by Resolute on Dec 17, 2009 8:45 PM PST via mobile reply actions
2-0 is the most unsafe lead in hockey
Spreading that Calgary Flames, Montreal Expos, The U, and Orlando Magic love.
I’m still flabbergasted by that goal. It should never have happened.
Why the fuck were all of the forwards above the dots?? This so-called defensive team needst o play FUCKING DEFENCE!!!!
Interference, Regehr on Justin Williams.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 8:50 PM PST up reply actions
Because that’s what NHL coaches do (to various degrees). Up by two with 15 minutes left in the third? Time to play safe.
The Flames do push the envelope in that regard, though.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 8:53 PM PST up reply actions
diving is the worst penalty to be called for...
…it just says you are a dumbass
Spreading that Calgary Flames, Montreal Expos, The U, and Orlando Magic love.
There’s no reason for this to be happening. Complete failure of initiative after they went up 2-0. They’re going to win, but this is silly.
Yeah, nearly a complete collapse there. Another game when the Flames are out-shot and out-chanced. They won thanks to some good work early, but this isn’t a real step forward. I mean, they were on home ice.
And playing a team missing five regulars.
Flames were -1.
Boyd, Joker, Iggy EV shots for/against were 4/15.
The only Flames in the Corsi red were the first line, Reggie and Dion, and I don’t think it’s unfair to say that playing behind Joker’s line likely hurt the two D.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 9:08 PM PST up reply actions
They played 14 minutes at EV, Kent. More than 1 SOG against per minute. Anyone figure that’s any good?
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 9:13 PM PST up reply actions
Oh, and the Kings had 11 shots in the other 32 EV minutes.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 9:16 PM PST up reply actions
Yeah. There’s one major problem with this team. Fix it and we’re off to the races. Everyone else holds up their end of the bargain.
On that note, I liked having a functional bottom 6. No McGrattan and Ivanans does nothing but take a retaliation penalty.
Brandon Prust played 8:55 and he was the guy with the least ice time. The mix and match in the bottom six was pretty good, actually.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 9:22 PM PST up reply actions
Brandon Prust is not a bad hockey player. There was that one sequence where they iced the puck with Prust on the ice, Sutter took the timeout and the faceoff passed without incident. Puck even moved north! I don’t remember who was on the ice against but you can bet Murray was jonesing for a Kopitar-Prust mismatch.
He’s no lost cause for sure, which is exactly the most you’d hope for in a fourth-liner/agitator type. He’s a better option than McG by roughly a factor of a whole fucking lot, IMO.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 9:30 PM PST up reply actions
I’m not sure a non-quantifiable amount like “a factor of a whole fucking lot” is allowed on this blog! I believe you mean “a factor of a whole fucking lot, squared”.
I’d be more interested in what rate we’re fucking the whole lot….
by Kent Wilson on Dec 18, 2009 11:22 AM PST up reply actions
Unbelievably awful on that last minute before the even-up penalty was called. They outman the Kings 5-2 in the zone and they line up like it’s a 6-on-5?? Bouwmeester deserved the penalty but why was he forced to take it?
Fuck, is that coaching? Is Sutter so bent on defensive blah blah blah that he won’t let this fucking team play two way hockey???
I have no idea. Whatever the cause of the last week or so though – this isn’t the way to win hockey games in the NHL.
you’re right. LA is still green. those jerkoff Hawks would eat us alive tonight>
Spreading that Calgary Flames, Montreal Expos, The U, and Orlando Magic love.
The first 40 were ok though. Still tentative imo, it seems like Sutter seems like he wants to go out of his way to make this team win its games 1-0 or 2-1.
Remember when this team couldn’t win without letting 3 or more in? Now they can’t win without scoring more than 2.
Ebbs and flows, I guess. But playing with the lead remains a gigantic problem, and I’m willing to lay most of that on the coahc. What with his “one-in” business.
Get used to it. It is Sutter’s style.
by Resolute on Dec 17, 2009 9:15 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
I dont know…maybe it would work if the guys he plays the most weren’t absolutely hopeless against other capable players.
Yuck. This is starting to look grim. I know we won, but man oh man this has been an abysmal string of hockey game.
To be honest, I think you are just looking for reasons to be negative here. We were pretty awful in the last ten minutes of this game, but for the first 50, there was one shift and one powerplay where LA felt dangerous, and that was it. Overall, this game was a step back in the right direction.
It would make a hell of a difference though if Sutter realized that Jokinen should never be on the ice in a key defensive situation.
You think so? Well, I know you’re not a big believer in Corsi but even by eye the first line spent the majority of its time flailing about in the defensive zone. This at home, with Sutter pulling strings to give them easy ice time.
If you’re so-called best players (or, as I prefer to think of them now, the players who have historically shown the most aptitude for scoring) are spending most of their time not working the puck into scoring areas, that’s a problem.
It’s a different story if Iginla was in 07/08 form and Jokinen was instead Tanguay (or some similar heavy hitter), and if we were bitching because one of our depth guys (for instance… Godard?) got killed. That’s an easier problem to fix, good bottom-six NHLers are a cheaper and easier-to-find commodity than scoring forwards (or, if we’re really dreaming, tough-minute outsocoring forwards).
As I said, get Jokinen the hell off that line, and things will look a lot better. There are times when Jarome Iginla is the best defensive player on that top line. I love Iggy, but that is a bad thing. He had some dumb passes last night that led to turnovers and chances against, but I also saw him battling a lot without any support from his linemates, and I saw Jokinen make so many forced passes to Iginla that it is no wonder the puck kept going the other way.
But whether you view it by eye or by spreadsheet, it is obvious to everyone but the coaching staff that Iginla and Jokinen need to be split up. Put Iggy with Langkow and Jokinen with Bourque, and I think we will see a much stronger team both offensively and defensively.
That said, as a whole, we were the better team for much of that game. Given how we played the previous three, and given where LA is in the standings, injured or not, I’ll take it as a good sign. We’ll see what tomorrow afternoon brings.
That’s fair enough. I think I mentioned in the gamethread elsewhere “fix the top line and we’re off to races”. Looks like we’re agreed.
by Kent Wilson on Dec 18, 2009 11:20 AM PST up reply actions
The Flames were out-chanced and out-shot at ES in the first two periods of this game, on home ice, by a club lacking a half dozen regular skaters. And those were the two good periods of this hockey game for the Flames. And the primary reason was $12M worth of forwards on the top line, which was pretty much the same issue in the prior three losses – the only difference this evening being we squeaked out a win this time. Isn’t that you below saying “Thank God for Kipper?”
I don’t look for reasons to be negative or positive. I follow the evidence as closely as possible. I don’t indiscriminately celebrate wins, nor do I consistently lament losses. I try to look at the club via a fairly stable set of criteria and if they fall above or below those expectations, I say so.
Here’s what I’d consider to be a legit step forward: not being out-shot and out-chanced by large margins. The first line at least holding it’s own in terms of possession and chances. Bonus marks if the PP would look competent outside of a won face-off or two.
Sad end tp what should have been an easy win. Thank god for Kipper.
by Resolute on Dec 17, 2009 9:14 PM PST via mobile reply actions
Sad end tp what should have been an easy win. Thank god for Kipper.
by Resolute on Dec 17, 2009 9:14 PM PST via mobile reply actions
The double post is almost proper, because it likely needed to said twice. That was entirely more work than it should have been.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 9:18 PM PST up reply actions
OK. It’ll be mid-day tomorrow, because I’m headed to bed.
by Robert Cleave on Dec 17, 2009 9:26 PM PST up reply actions
I actually thought we were fine after 41.5 minutes also – I didn’t think the Kings were better (or even) after two, and felt like the Flames should be up more than 2 at that point. Didn’t look at all like the last three games, I didn’t think.
Rest of the 3rd after Dawes goal was a clusterfuck, though!
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
Related FanPosts on Matchsticks and Gasoline
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recent FanPosts
Northwest Standings
Flames Schedule
Next 5 Games
Vancouver
|
Tue 09/21 | 6:00 PM PDT |
|
@
Vancouver
|
Tue 09/21 | 7:00 PM PDT |
|
Tampa Bay
|
Sat 09/25 | 6:00 PM PDT |
|
Phoenix
|
Tue 09/28 | 6:00 PM PDT |
|
@
New York Islanders
|
Wed 09/29 | 5:00 PM PDT |
Last 5 Games
|
@
Vancouver
|
Sat 04/10 | L 3 - 7 |
|
Minnesota
|
Thu 04/08 | SO - L 1 - 2 |
|
San Jose
|
Tue 04/06 | L 1 - 2 |
|
@
Chicago
|
Sun 04/04 | L 1 - 4 |
|
@
Colorado
|
Fri 04/02 | W 2 - 1 |
In Association With
Latest Puck Daddy - NHL from Yahoo! Sports
- In which former NHL coach Ken Hitchcock foils a shoplifter
- Montreal's Price talks new 2-year contract, expectations post-Halak
- Donald Fehr aware of Kovalchuk drama, mum on everything else
- Puck Headlines: Savard's agent rants on Bettman; Halak in Montreal
- Boudreau, Crawford placed on the coaching hot seat
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
