Fatal Error

There are 11 games left in the season. The Flames are playing one of the four opponents that they definitely should beat. Miikka Kiprusoff is the Flames MVP and starting goalie. Vesa Toskala, the Flames back-up, starts in between the pipes.

Can someone please explain this to me?

I don’t care about Brent Sutter’s hunches that Miikka can’t play the Wild and that Toskala played well against them last week.

Why would you even want to ‘rest’ Kipper during the stretch run if there isn’t anything to ‘stretch’ for?

Did Sutter over think the decision on his starting netminder? Yes.

Did he make a horrible gaffe and possibly, finally, cement the Flames in the 9th position? I believe so.

That is a atrocious coaching error and there is no excuse for it.

Kipper should be playing every single game until the Flames are eliminated from playoff contention. He is the best player on the team and the only reason the Flames have a chance to begin with.

Toskala allowed three questionable goals and that just can not happen. He showed his true “Leaf” colours today.

“The Bears are who we thought they were!”

Ten games remain for the Flames, who sit two points back of Detroit, and time is running out. I do not think the Red Wings are even the team to catch either. The team that is the most susceptible to being caught is either the Avalanche or the Kings.

Both teams are young and both teams haven’t been in a playoff chase for some time. They play each other three times over the course of the rest of the season, including back-to-back games this Monday and Wednesday. If one team were to sweep that series, than this could possibly open the door for the Flames, given the Flames take care of their own business. Still, the walls are closing in on them at an alarming rate.

The Flames have 81 points with a possible 20 still available to get.

The room for error, as I see it, is two games. If they lose two games or more then they are finished. Lose just two, and win the rest and you give yourself a shot.

Like my good friend once told me though, “Hope is a horrible thing.”

This has been,

Newman on the Flames

Same Same, But Different

The score in tonight’s Avs-Flames game was 3-2 for 5th time this season.

It’s as if no other outcome is possible.

However, this time, the Calgary Flames finally beat the Colorado Avalanche on the back of a stand out performance by Miikka...err Vesa Toskala?

Is Calgary the place to go when you are Finnish, a goalie, and not performing how you should? Is Darryl Sutter the goalie whisperer?

In two starts since coming over from the Anaheim Ducks, Vesa Toskala is 2-0 with a 2.00 GAA and a .937 SP%. He has been, in word, great. Something Flames fans are not used to seeing from back-up goaltenders. And something Leafs fans never had the pleasure of viewing.

There is no goalie controversy, of course, but it is nice to finally have a faint hope of winning when Kipper is given the odd night off.

On the other hand another former Leaf, Matt Stajan, had a brutal game. He had a team high three giveaways on the night and looked out of place on the ice.

You must be absolutely NUTS to sign this guy to $3.5 million a year for 4 years. He is soft, as he constantly gets muscled off the puck, and his scoring touch is mediocre at best.

Did Darryl want to justify the trade that bad? This guy is the Flames number one centre?

You have Stajan, Langkow, and Conroy up the middle. Trust me, no one is scared Darryl.

Another newcomer, Ales Kotalik, showed his softness in Denver tonight. One play in particular stands out, and Ray Ferraro did a good job pointing it out. The play happened down in the Flames offensive zone when Kyle Quincey just pushed Ales aside and took the puck from him. Kotalik showed no sign of desperation, no willingless to outwork his opponent. For a team that has to be play with a sense of urgency right now, you simply can not have half-hearted efforts like the one you saw from Ales tonight.

Sharks are next in another must win game for the Flames. Fans will remember the last time the Flames played the Sharks.

Does a 9-1 curb-stomping ring a bell?

The Flames should be pumped to get some redemption following one of the worst defeats that this franchise has ever seen.

This has been,

Newman on the Flames

P.S. Visit http://hitmenhockey.blogspot.com for all the latest on the Calgary Hitmen as they march towards the Memorial Cup. It will include live game blogging and post game comments. Get on the Playoff Train!

Scoring Goals turns into Wins

Maybe they were listening when everyone in the hockey world was laying into them for the horrible moves they made at the trade deadline and the atrocious game they followed with that night. The Calgary Flames (32-24-9) were a team that could not score. They have suddenly turned on the afterburners with ten goals in 2 games.

Leading the way is Jarome Iginla who recorded his tenth career hat trick in today’s game and added as assist. Rene Bourque is so far earning that giant contract extension recording 5 points in the last two games. Matt Stajan has 3 points in the last two as well. The newly formed top line of Bourque-Stajan-Iginla combined for 10 points in today’s afternoon tilt. Hey Brent, keep this line together!

Vesa Toskala, the Flames new back-up goaltender, recorded his first win in his first game wearing the red, yellow and black. It took the former back-up a little longer to record his first ‘W’; then again the Flames rarely hung 5 goals on an opponent while he was in net. Nevertheless, Vesa must be applauded for today’s performance as he played well in relief of his Finnish buddy Miikka. I know I laid into the Flames for making this move and I am still not a huge fan, due to Vesa’s horrible numbers, but hopefully that was simply the Leafs and not Toskala himself. One can hope, right?

This is a welcome sign for the Flames who have not had a reliable back-up goalie since…well, it has been a while. And no, Cujo was not reliable even though he stole that game versus the Sharks. He was quite possibly the most awkward and nerve-racking goalie to watch in the history of the game.

Iginla recorded his 30th goal of the season in this game. It marked the 9th straight season in which he has had thirty or more goals in a season. He now has 62 points this campaign and moves into 20th in the league in scoring. The Flames will need ‘Olympic’ Jarome to keep up his strong play if they have any chance of spring time success.

This Flames team has turned into a social chemistry experiment in a manner of speaking. Much like in the Olympics where teams were given little to no time to gel as a team, this Flames team, which includes 8 fresh faces (9 if you include Backlund), has been given the monumental task of climbing out of a non-playoff seed into the elite eight in less than a month. Not to mention the colossal pressure that Calgary has on them if and when they make the playoffs.

The Flames have now won 3 of their last 4 games and are playing better. Each and every game becomes the biggest game of the season; not to sound to cliché.

Tuesday’s game against the Red Wings is, well, one of those ‘big’ games. The Flames are 1-1 against the Wings this season and have out-scored them 4-3 in those two games. Kiprusoff recorded one of his 3 shutouts he has this season against the Wings back in November when he faced 40 shots on goal.

I am sure the Flames will try their best, but as Sean Connery so elegantly put it,

“Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.”

The Flames have tried their best all year and maybe that has been the problem.

This has been,

Newman on the Flames

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Laughing Stock

I can see the line-up at the hospital for broken ankles is getting pretty long, as people have been jumping off of the bandwagon at a tremendous pace.

Fresh off one of the worst sets of trades I have ever witnessed, the Calgary Flames lay a massive egg on the ice tonight against the Minnesota Wild. Fortunately I did not have to bear witness to this game tonight so I really can not say a whole lot about it except for the fact that once again the Flames offence continues to fire on all cylinders (See: sarcasm).

The Flames were shut out for the 4th time since mid-January. They had been shut out zero times before that. They are not good and have a tough Devils team coming into the Dome on Friday night…yikes!

As for the trades, I am thinking Sutter must have taken the wrong pills this morning because these trades do not make an ounce of sense in my mind; except for maybe the Toskala deal, but it’s a stretch.

Toskala was once a good goalie, but that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. He gives Kipper that added support in net and some veteran experience but is he really any better than McElhinney? He had 2 ½ decent seasons in San Jose but that was 3 years ago. His stats this year are appalling. A 3.66 GAA and a .874 SP%! I do not care what team you play for, that is horrendous. McElhinney’s stats: 3.22 GAA, .885 SP%. Equally bad; fine.

I do not blame Sutter for not watching any Leafs games but that’s what scouts are for. The Leafs are bad for a reason, and now the Flames have 3 of their forwards, their mediocre defenceman and their crappy goalie. Why make the trade? Where is the logic?

As for giving up on Dustin Boyd, let me take a quote from my Sunday blog:

Boyd has the most upside and would clearly bring back the most in return. The other option would be Langkow who garners a $4.5 million dollar cap hit for the next two seasons. In my opinion, if the Flames deal Boyd, they only give up on yet another up and coming player to early in his career. Like St. Louis, Giguere, Stillman, Lombardi and most recently Phaneuf, Dustin Boyd is a Flames draft pick who is starting to show signs of his potential. Trading another one of our young guys for an older more experienced player (Jokinen last year, Stuart a couple years back, etc.) only sets this franchise further back.

And what did the Flames do? Exactly what they have been doing for the past 15 years; giving up on players way too quickly, but this time they received next to nothing in return, so maybe I was a tad off on the market value of Boyd. But still, why deal him if you are not going to get anything. This move pisses me off almost as much as the next deal does.

Why is Sutter determined to get older and slower? Steve “Freakin” Staois! He is 35 years old and has a cap hit of $2.6 million next year. Aaron Johnson, when used, is 9 years younger and made just over half a million dollars. Johnson was a decent ‘fill-in guy’ and made next to nothing, so why get rid of him? Staios is a 6th/7th defenceman and slow as molasses.

I had numerous Oiler fans laugh in my face today when they heard this deal, and rightfully so as Darryl Sutter is slowly making the Flames the laughing stock of the NHL.

This has been,

Newman on the Flames