Thursday, October 14, 2010

Same Pile of...

“SHUT UP! Enough already, Ballstein! Who cares about Derek Zoolander anyway? The man has only one look, for Christ's sake! Blue Steel? Ferrari? Le Tigra? They're the same face! Doesn't anybody notice this?” – Mugatu


This is how I feel.

The Calgary Flames are Derek Zoolander. Derek Zoolander is the Calgary Flames. Regardless of the grammatical nightmare that is that last sentence one thing remains – the 2010-11 Calgary Flames are eerily similar, if not the worse, to the 2009-10 version of the Flames.

It’s the same look every single time.

Dump and chase. Grind. Shoot from the perimeter. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

The Flames were shutout five times last year and the first time was January 15th against the Nashville Predators.

This year, the Flames have been shutout in two of their first three games, and better yet to two of the three worst teams in the league standings last season—the Oilers and Panthers.

Do you remember the saying? You can’t make the playoffs in October but you can sure miss them. Well the Flames are sure proving that theory. And don’t give me that injury garbage – not one of the walking wounded can make a big enough impact on this team to warrant more excitement as they are all roughly the same re-incarnation of the next player in line.

They can’t score goals. They don’t create chances. The power play is a two-minute relaxation period in which we hope we can keep the opposing team out of our own zone. The only thing that remains constant is the penalty kill and the only reason that component remains intact is because DEFENCE is the only thing the Flames are ever taught to do.

Scoring goals? Why bother when you can dump and chase and hope to god that your miracle Hail Mary point shot gets past the goalie. How many scoring chances did the Flames have tonight? I dare you to say more than three...dare you.

The Flames had all of TEN shots on goal in the first two periods – TEN! They had 17 shots in the third period but none were even remotely close to bona-fide scoring chances. There was very rarely a time in tonight’s game when you gasped, clenched the armrests, or nearly fell off your chair due to a near chance. I know at least half my table was caught up in talking about the NFL or something else more exciting than the poor excuse for professional hockey players that decided to play tonight.

Tonight’s effort was pathetic.

What else is there to say?

There were ZERO bright spots. How bad can it get before something changes?

When are they going to break up the top line? When is Mikael Backlund going to get a chance on the PP? He had all of 0:00 minutes on the man-advantage unit tonight – seems to be working B. Sutter. A stellar 1 for 16 this season.

Why practice something in pre-season and have it work when you are not going to continue doing so during the games that count?

Blue Steel? Le Tigre? Ferrari?

My better option would be to get into a freak gasoline fight accident so I don’t have to force myself to watch this drivel 78 more times

Where are my Crazy pills? I’m going to need them


Newman
twitter.com/TSRNewman
 
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1 comment:

Reverend Moon said...

I agree completely.
I hate Sutter "hockey".
I say its time to re-build.
The Ken King must be de-throned.
Sutter doesn't understand hockey since it changed to a faster, more skilled game. Make that Sutters.
The Flames need to trade away their old star(s?) while he's (they're?) still worth something. But not, I repeat not, until Sutter is gone. He's been on the losing end of every trade he's made. Except maybe the Kiprusoff trade, though I don't know who that pick ended up being for the Sharks so...?

I stopped looking at shots on goal as a reliable statistic for determining whether the Flames played well or not. I can usually count Flames scoring chances on one hand and I'm missing a finger. I do have one for Sutter however.

Go Flames!