Game 15 Recap – Blackhawks vs Flames (Historic Game for Iginla – seriously)

A predictable result where the Flames played a better team and did not have the bounces or the luck to pull out a point. The Blackhawks took the game 4-1.

After Olli Jokinen’s goal to bring the Flames within 1 in the third period, hope washed over me briefly. Maybe, just maybe they could tie this one up and take it to OT for at least a single point. Jonathan Toews, Marian Hossa and Viktor Stalberg snuffed out that hope about 5 min later as Stalberg put the dagger goal back in; to restore the 2 goal lead. The empty netter inflated the final result to 4-1.

In listening to the Blackhawks feed it was mentioned that this was a historic game for Jarome Iginla. In 15 years with the Calgary Flames this was the first game that Jarome had played in the Flaming C with 5 players under the age of 25 on the starting roster.

The Blackhawks' commentators were stunned and talked about it during the game for awhile. It was quite a damning condemnation of the Flames scouting department over 20 years which has spanned several GMs. 

The youth injection of Mikael Backlund, Paul Byron, T.J. Brodie, Chris Butler and Roman Horak was in my mind a sign that moves are coming, Feaster is showcasing Flames prospects on NHL ice. He has also probably pulled out a blank pink slip and Coach Sutter is hanging by a thread. The Blues who are comparable in expectation and performance have already fired their coach after all.

Change is coming – Niklas Hagman is on waivers, Cory Sarich is in the press box, Brendan Morrison not fully recovered got the hook and Anton Babchuk is on IR, this is a team that says to me, well we can’t do much worse so we may as well-showcase and give our youth some experience. I doubt any of those Vet players have attracted any takers in trade talks for Feaster.

You can literally sense it coming.

Brent Sutter is either getting fired or a big trade is coming. If Feaster makes a trade he has to win the trade, better to move no one than to make a bad desperation trade. I suspect he wants those young players on the ice now to show other GMs how they perform, as much as anything else.

Brent Sutter, well he has had longer than several coaches recently in Calgary and Mike Keenan commented post-Calgary on how the Flames were a difficult team to coach. Even if Sutter is fired, the next thought has to be fairly quickly, who do you hire to replace him? Would it make any difference? If not, why bother firing him aside from jumpstarting the team.

May as well stick a scarecrow behind the bench and put a Flames hat on him and call him coach and just let the team play.  

by M Smith