Three Things From Week 16

The Flames were 1-2 last week with their only win coming in a 3-2 OT win over the Ottawa Senators, AFTER blowing a 2 goal lead. Hopefully the All Star Break will give the Flames a chance to reset and come back from the break ready to go.

Johnny Gaudreau Heating Up?

Johnny Gaudreau took the Flames into the All Star Break in spectacular fashion. His fantastic defensive play at the blue line caused the turnover that lead to Gaudreau and Mikael Backlund’s 2 on 0 in overtime against the Sens. That OT goal was Gaudreau’s second point of the night and the first time he was on the good side of the +/- ledger that week.

He also rolled into the ASG and racked up 4 points and looked more like the Johnny Gaudreau of the past 2 seasons. The Flames NEED this Johnny Gaudreau to come back and guide the Flames towards the playoffs and take some of the offensive responsibility off of the 3M line.

10 Games

That’s how long it took for the Flames to finally score first in a game. This odd run by the Flames started back on January 9th against Winnipeg and was still alive going into Thursday night’s game against the Ottawa Senators. Of all the people to end that streak, who had Micheal Ferland in the pool? At 9:39 of the second period Ferland collected a rebound of his own shot on the door step and fire home his 6th goal of the season, giving the Flames the first tally in a game in over 2 weeks. Let’s hope that’s the end of that kind of nonsense for the rest of the season.

Glen Gulutzan FINALLY Shows Some Emotion

People like Glen Gultuzan. People hate Glen Gulutzan. People want him fired. People want him to stay on as the Flames coach. I’ve never been overly critical of him so far this season. Yes, his lines combinations are odd sometimes and clearly he needs to shuffle his defence around, but I’ve always kind of stayed in the back and kept quiet. This week however, after Johnny Gaudreau got leveled and he benched Alex Chiasson I had enough and called him and his coaching style gutless. The Flames then went out and got slapped around by the Canadiens 5-1 and Gultuzan finally snapped.

His post game comments, in particular the shot at the 4th line, were priceless and he finally showed some emotion when roasting his team. I don’t know that the Flames need him throwing sticks and kicking over trash cans, but he at least showed some fire. He needs to call his team and his Captain out when they are under performing. When they suck, they need to hear it in the locker room and in the media from the coach. Tuesday’s post game comments were a start and it’s time for Coach Gulutzan to show he’s in charge of this team.