It's on to the second half of a SoCal back-to-back, with the Calgary Flames playing the Anaheim Ducks. And it won't be pretty.
After a tough loss to the Los Angeles Kings, in which the Calgary Flames barely looked interested through most of the night, the Flames get to take a bus across town (I assume) to square off with the Pacific Division's bottom-dwellers. And while the Ducks might not be very good with a record of 14-13-4, they're still better than us, and more importantly, play their best hockey at home, with a record of 9-6-1.
This is a team, that for whatever reason, is vastly underachieving. You have Bobby Ryan, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry (*shudder*), Teemu Selanne, Cam Fowler, and most importantly, George Parros, but can't seem to put a good record together.
A lot things point to the D, where Cam Fowler is being asked to step into Scott Neidermayer's skates, and aside from him and Lubomir Visnovsky, there's really nobody that can handle defensive responsiblities. Sorry Ducks, but Toni Lydman, Paul Mara, Luca Sbisa, and Andy Sutton are hardly the stuff dreams are made of. It's quite a contrast to the (theoretically) rad blueline of Calgary, where Bouwmeester is playing hard, Giordano is, well, Giordano. Regehr is a step behind, but far from terrible, and Pardy is a prospect who actually developed. (Just pretend that Staios and Sarich don't exist).
On offense, despite the mounds of legitimate stars on the Ducks, there's not a whole lot happening. In 2 more games played than the Flames, they've scored 2 less goals on the season. Reason being is nothing is going on in their depth. The one good thing Darryl Sutter has done on this team is make a really really good 3rd line; Curtis Glencross et al. are warriors who can push the pace of the game and get pucks on net. It's never pretty, but as far as depth lines go- we could be a lot worse off.
The combination of the Ducks superstars, the Flames second game in two nights, and the fact the it's the Calgary Flames, leads me to suspect a loss. Especially if the Ducks take penalties. That being said, here's a list of things that happened in history on December 10 that are more awesome than this team.
List of Things that Happened on December 10 That Are More Awesome than the Flames (from Wikipedia)
- 1901- The First Nobel Prizes are awarded
- 1948- The UN adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- 1955- Mighty Mouse premieres on TV
- 1964- Bobby Flay is born
- 1968- The 300 Million Yen Robbery
- 1974- Meg White is born
The last one leads me to the title of the post tonight:
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That's it for me folks. Chances are the lines and pairings remain the same, but if someone could post all that, it'd be terrific. Enjoy the countdown to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins Sean Couturier!