The Calgary Flames Opening Night D-Pairs: Gross Negligence

Giordano-Wideman

Brodie-Engelland

Grossman-Hamilton

Scratches: Kulak, Jokipakka

Above were the Calgary Flames opening night defensive pairings announced prior to the first game of the season, against the Edmonton Oilers. Crazy, eh? I just cannot figure out why.

What Was Wrong With It?

If you did not watch the game and are not familiar with the defensemen listed above, here is a quick rundown of what is wrong with these defensive pairings.

How Might a Good Line Up Look?

The sky is not falling, it was one game and there are 81 games to go. The real issue is the fact that this seemed like a bad idea from the outset and as it turns out, it was. Here is how the pairings could have looked:

Giordano-Brodie

Kulak-Hamilton

Jokipakka-Wideman

or

Giordano-Hamilton

Brodie-Wideman

Jokipakka-Kulak

or

Brodie-Hamilton

Giordano-Kulak

Jokipakka-Wideman

And so on.

The point is, there were many options that Glen Gulutzan had at his disposal for the first game of the season. He picked a really bad one. Why, we will never know. There are plenty of games to be played, plenty of opportunities to win games. But, you should be trying to win every game. Therefore, you should dress the line up that best helps you do that. It is hard to legitimately believe the Flames did that yesterday, let’s hope this was a strange, weird, one-off thing.

Credit where it is due however, the forward lines were terrific and I by no means take this one instance as a positive or negative indictment on Gulutzan, we need much more time for that.

Here were the pairings in practice today:

Giordano-Brodie

Jokipakka-Hamilton

Wideman-Engelland

Much better.

by samwell9