Game 4 Review

by Kent Wilson on Apr 23, 2009 11:23 AM PDT

Well, they did it. The Flames managed to hold serve and dig themselves out of the 2-0 hole. Calgary probably had their best game yet, out-scoring and out-corsi-ing the Hawks best players yesterday by a generoous margin at ES.

Most of that had to do with Jokinen and Iginla, who finally looked like $12M worth of difference makers last night. Somewhat propehctically, I noted in the pregame post that "I don't think they've given the Hawks their best shot yet. Calgary's top 6 forwards haven't really done anything at ES in this series...". Ye-haw.

The challenge, of course, is to do it again, but in Chicago. In order to pull off the upset, Calgary will have to win one in the enemies barn. The bad news is, they haven't done that yet this year. The good news is they were damn close a couple of times already and that was without Iginla skating around, snorting flames. So it doesn't look like the impossible feat that, say, winning in DET did a couple of springs ago.

Notes:

- Both Conroy and Langkow were felled at different intervals of the contest. No one really knows yet the extent of their injuries or whether they'll be back in the line-up for Saturday. Ditto Bourque. One wonders when this stupid injury crap will end.

- Peter Mahr on the radio this morning said that Robyn Regehr is still weeks away from being game ready. As he put it "late second round".

- As noted by Ro in the gamethread, last night was a game of firsts for Calgary: first play-off goal(s) by Jokinen, first time winning back to back games since early March, and the first time scoring more than 4 goals on Khabibulin. Huzzah!

- Also noted late in the comments by Daveyt, the missed "hand-pass" call was actually correct. The NHL rulebook stats that:

A player shall be permitted to stop or “bat” a puck in the air with his open hand, or push it along the ice with his hand, and the play shall not be stopped unless, in the opinion of the Referee, he has directed the puck to a teammate.

Clearly, Langkow did not purposefully direct the puck to Nystrom, so the non-call on the ice was the right one.

- Jordan Leopold caught some flack early in the series and rightly so - he was struggling a bit. However, he's been full value in Calgary and one of the more valuable assets in the absence of Regehr. He played 18 minutes at ES last night, mostly against the likes of Kane, Toews, Havlat, Sharp and Bolland and ended the night +3. Dion Phaneuf also had a good game last night, leading the club in ice-time and ended up with 2a and a +2 rating. Solid.

- The only sore spots for me was the pairing of Aucoin+Pardy, which was vicitimzed a couple of times by the speedy Hawks. Aucoin was sheltered relative to the guys I mentioned above and still got scored on twice at ES.

- Special mention for Eric Nystrom who moved up the depth chart in the absence of Rene Bourque and probably had his best NHL game to date. I'm sure his dad is proud.

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i’m not going to defend my dislike of leopold or concede that i think he is in ANY way a top-pairing defenseman, but i will admit that if his minutes are kept to a reasonable level, he CAN be effective. i think playing him 25 minutes a night is a huge overestimation of his skills and i think he is prone to taking seriously stupid and untimely penalties. he’s generally sound positionally and mostly keeps up with his guys. being paired with dion is not an easy task, i’m sure…

by walkinvisible on Apr 23, 2009 11:36 AM PDT reply actions

Yeah, he’s not a 25 minute per night guy. Most defensemen aren’t, really. He’s definitely being forced to play over his head.

Matchsticks and Gasoline

by Kent Wilson on Apr 23, 2009 11:54 AM PDT up reply actions

i absolutely admit that bringing him in was a no-brainer. we clearly needed a defenseman (or two) at the deadline, and one who recently played for this team was the right thing (and giving up next-to-nothing to do so). still, i don’t think he’s the answer for the future (i’ll be kindof upset if he’s back next year), and i’d really like to see him tighten up on the terrible penalties. i mean, if conroy and sarich can do it (they used to be the two worst offenders and are now rarely penalized) then leopold certainly can….

by walkinvisible on Apr 23, 2009 12:00 PM PDT up reply actions

I think you’d see his penalties go down with his level of competition.

As for re-signing him, it all depends on the length of the contract and the amount.

Matchsticks and Gasoline

by Kent Wilson on Apr 23, 2009 12:02 PM PDT up reply actions

Of course, he is a ‘veteran’ defenseman, so he fits snugly into the category that Mr. Sutter overpays for! Maybe someone needs to hypnotize Sutter and convince him Leopold is a good depth winger (ala Moss, Bourque, Glencross).

by maimster on Apr 23, 2009 1:24 PM PDT up reply actions

Injuries

I think they’re one of biggest determiners of who gets to the cup and its almost impossibe to recover from injuries (as a team) as long as you’re playing 6 and 7 game series with OT thrown in there to boot.

by NuckFan on Apr 23, 2009 11:57 AM PDT reply actions

No doubt. The secret for the Flames would be staying in the post season long enough to get guys like Conrony, Lankgow, Bourque and Reggie back in the line-up.

Matchsticks and Gasoline

by Kent Wilson on Apr 23, 2009 12:00 PM PDT up reply actions

Another secret might be stop playing tight, close games and seven game series all the time! Just once I want a comfortable win – haven’t had that since the Philly game.

by maimster on Apr 23, 2009 1:28 PM PDT up reply actions

Andre Roy suspended

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=419768

by chw on Apr 23, 2009 12:44 PM PDT reply actions

Kipper, amongst other things

So this just in….Roy suspended 1 game. I would normally say, ha! Thank you, but given the rash of injuries, that actually might be getting ahead of myself. If Connie and Langkow can’t go (which from what I’m reading, Langkow could be serious) who do we insert? Lundmark, DVG?

Kent, I seem to remember you saying that this year could be the Flames year for injuries, well this is voodoo witchery. I am constantly on the edge of my seat waiting for the next guy to go down.

On the positives: Jokinen looks better and better every game. He looks absolutely possessed suddenly. I don’t know what was said, but the speed, the size and the crazy eyes are all making me happy we got him. Jarmoe looks like he may finally be gone and Jarome back, but lets wait a few more games before we officially announce Jarmoe is dead. Sarich has been great, and Leo, who I am (was) a fan of, even though that is quickly fading, has been getting a bit better.

Lastly Kipper. I didn’t have the PC with me to participate last night in the oline conversation, but I’m taking a bullet for our keeper again (not so much a kipper-love thing, just I’ve been a goalie for over 20 years so I empathize.) I noticed that the boo-birds were out again for the third goal. I think that is a tough play, a shot deflected through traffic from 8 feet out, but that’s not the point. The bigger issues here are these – I don’t think we have seen the best of Kipper this series, and I think like Leo, Iggy, Jokinen he is warming up and we will see it. More importantly, I think the question has been in peoples minds…In what series do we win the goaltender battle on paper? I would have answered – San Jose, Detroit, and barely St.Louis (maybe). Even these are so easily debated on the simple fact we have no backup. However against Vancouver, Chicago (with Habby and Huet) CLB (Mason) ANA (Hiller and Giguere) its no contest. However the playoffs are a different animal… Osgood is suddenly Osgreat (although its the strength of the team carrying him) Mason is a sieve, Nabby is not great as expected…on and on.

Getting to my point, Kipper is outplaying Khabibulin, by a significant margin, AND factor in that Chicago’s primary strength is offensive creativity (and they have had some beauty goals (Toews, Sharp, 2 deflections last night, Havlat) I think we have to get behind our keeper. If he continues to outpace Habby, we’re in good shape. I’m putting my neck out there. Kipper STEALS game 5.

by LawrenceS on Apr 23, 2009 12:46 PM PDT reply actions

I’ll never feel as comfortable watching Kipper play as I did a couple of years ago (2004-06), but I’m not quite clenching my butt cheeks every time the puck goes near the Flame net any more either, like I was for much of the season. So that’s good!

by maimster on Apr 23, 2009 1:26 PM PDT up reply actions

Given the continuing rash of injuries I think Kipper needs to steal game 5 – I fully expect the Flames to get outplayed in Chicago. He used to steal games regularly – now it is rare – but there are still flashes of brilliance.

by Bonesman on Apr 23, 2009 1:33 PM PDT up reply actions

Beat me to it

I was a little too slow on the Roy update…probably because I was busy drafting up my epic novel.

by LawrenceS on Apr 23, 2009 12:49 PM PDT reply actions

Did not catch that at all on TSN. Nobody mentioned anything at all other than the fact that they were having words in the pre-game. That’s realy out of the blue.

by R O on Apr 23, 2009 12:50 PM PDT reply actions

What hilarious about it is: a sucker punch to the face and a stick-breaking cross-check did not warrant suspensions in this series. But Roy trash talking during warm-ups did.

Matchsticks and Gasoline

by Kent Wilson on Apr 23, 2009 1:00 PM PDT up reply actions

My mind is assploding!

-Colin

by Colin S on Apr 23, 2009 1:21 PM PDT up reply actions

No kidding – I had to go read the story because I barely remembered seeing him last night, much less to anything to warrant suspension. You’ve got to give it to the NHL brass – when they put their mind on something, no matter how trivial (trash talking, in this case) they over-react at a hall-of-fame level.

by maimster on Apr 23, 2009 1:21 PM PDT up reply actions

Langkow

Of course nobody outside the dressing room really knows how bad his injury is and I am sure there will be little useful info coming from the Flames – but – I was at the game last night and had a very good view of his blocked shot and will say this. I really don’t expect him to be the lineup for game 5. He is one tough SOB and he was in a ton of pain. Not sure how evident this was on TV but he looked like he had been shot from my vantage point in the 12th row. If it is just a bruise rather than a broken hand or something I will be very surprised. Not good.

by Bonesman on Apr 23, 2009 1:17 PM PDT reply actions

It was evident on TV! I had to go ice my own hand watching Lanks contort in pain…

by maimster on Apr 23, 2009 1:23 PM PDT up reply actions

ohmygod. i just had a very intensely frightening revelation….
over at hitthepost i mused about the lines sans-conroy/langkow and it looked like this:
nystrom – olli – iggy
bourque – cammo – bert
glenX – boyd – moss
roy – lundmark – peters

so, logically, i think to myself “if roy is out, no biggie; dvdg draws in (i kinda like that better anyways).” but just now i realized that it is decidedly likely that ERIKSSON draws in for roy and rotates thru the D, while nystrom etc. rotate thru that 12th spot (like they did for most of last night but with the useless and liable #8 taking a turn on the blueline).

by walkinvisible on Apr 23, 2009 2:07 PM PDT reply actions

Please stop having “intensely frightening revelations”! Not good for my heartburn…

by maimster on Apr 23, 2009 2:21 PM PDT up reply actions

that’s also assuming Bourque is back. Man, it’s getting ugly quick.

by LawrenceS on Apr 23, 2009 2:24 PM PDT up reply actions

i would presume that bourque will be back. if the guy took practice AND the pre-game skate, he can’t be THAT bad…. i would also take conroy sitting on the bench for the duration of the game last night as a good sign… and, personally, i’m far less concerned about losing guys up front as i am about losing players on the blueline…. langks is as good as gone, IMO.

by walkinvisible on Apr 23, 2009 2:47 PM PDT up reply actions

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