Flames @ Wild Post-Game – Can’t Always Get What You Want

Corsi

H2H Ice

I only saw the second period through a grainy internet feed last night, so my impressions of the game are rather limited. From what I saw, the team looked like a man that had swum out too far from the shore and was desperately fighting to stay above water. Minnesota frequently generated odd-man rushes and were getting players behind the Flames defense with relative ease. That said, given the Flames recent schedule and success, I think we can give the boys a pass on this one.

The ES possession ended up about even at the end of the night, although I would guess Minny enjoyed the better scoring chances. And, as has become customary, the Flames took more penalties than they drew and didn't do any damage when they did have the man advantage (2 chances, 0 shots on net). Now that the top 6 forward thing seems to be reasonably settled (for the time being), I'm thinking Calgary's overall inability to surrounding the PP is the next on item on the coaches "to fix" list. Either the Flames will need to start drawing more penalties or they'll have to start doing something on the rare occasions they go up a man. Doing neither is the worst of both worlds.

Another lingering issue is the ineffectiveness of the third forward unit. Moss, Boyd and Nystrom were well under water again last night. In fact, I think their struggles were so apparent that Sutter started shuffling lines in the second period, likely with an eye to getting Boyd et al out of their own end once in awhile. Part of the issue can be blamed on the insertion of Boyd for Conroy (I like the kid, but clearly he's still not one to move the puck forward on a consistent basis yet), although the problem reared it's head before the Conroy injury. Moss not being quite right and Glencross moving up is probably the real culprit and who knows if or when either of those things will change. It's obviously less important for the 12 minute/night guys to be keeping their heads above water, but they are (aside from the PP) the team's primary weakness currently and worthy of at least some concern.

by Kent Wilson