An epic clusterfuck

A nine to one loss to the San Jose Sharks. A five-game losing streak. What now?

The motherfucking Blackhawks, that's what.

I don't know how to respond to this; really, it's surreal to me that a team, only four points out of first place in its division, could play so poorly against a team that they are supposed to be competing with for one of the top spots in the Western conference. How a team, mere pennies away from the cap ceiling and stacked to the gills with supposed top-tier talent, can concede nine goals in a game, allowing fourty-six shots on goal, while answering with only one? How any group of NHL-calibre players can finish a single game with a combined rating of -18?

After losing a close one last night in Anaheim, not one single player on this team showed up focused and ready to play. It showed, as the Sharks exploited the Flames' barely-there defence and went all Harlem Globetrotters on their asses within minutes of the opening faceoff. This seems to be an ongoing problem with this team, no matter the coach, no matter the assortment of players. I'm not going to make accusations of character flaws, complacency, lack of commitment to winning, or off-ice distractions. All of those things are certainly possible, but petty nonetheless.

Brent Sutter offered up the same old diatribe as he does after each and every unflattering loss; they're embarrassed, he's speechless, there are "issues" that need to be resolved. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if these "issues" haven't been resolved by the 50-game mark, they're not damn well getting resolved. And that's not Brent's fault; regardless of the "systems" he is preaching, these players know what they have to do, how they have to play, not only to be successful, but to win on a consistent basis. These guys are NHL players. They know what it takes to win, at any level. The problem is, they're not willing to do it nearly often enough.

The Flames have been "embarrassed" far too often for a team contending for a division title and a playoff spot, in my opinion. They blew a five to nothing lead to Blackhawks in October. Lost seven to one on home ice to the very same team in November. Turned in a listless effort at home in a five to one loss to the Canucks just last month. Hell, I found getting shutout one to nothing at home against the Predators embarrassing. This is beyond embarrassment; this is an epic clusterfuck.

How many "wake-up calls" does this team need? At this point, it appears they've OD'd on sleeping pills and the front desk at the hotel is closed. It's up to the players, the leaders, and management to see if they can be revived or not.

It's frustrating because Brent Sutter is not a bad coach, Darryl Sutter is not a bad general manager, and these are not bad players. So how do you explain this team's nosedive into mediocrity, unless they were simply overachieving until now?

I commend Darryl Sutter and Flames management for their ongoing commitment to building the best team possible. He's done almost everything in his power to build a winning franchise, and hasn't gotten the desired results. It must be discouraging to watch the team you thought could compete with the league's best flounder. Cap management issues and failure to address the team's scoring needs aside, he has dragged this organization back to respectability, and it appears that he's done all he can do. I think it might be time for him to move on.

Is a trade really going to fix things, or just act as a band-aid solution? A hasty deal can't be done in order to appease impatient fans. If a trade is going to be made, it has to make sense for the team going forward, beyond the end of this season, and will likely occur at the deadline or the draft. Do we trust the management team's judgement after the way the Jokinen deal turned out? If this losing streak has taught us anything, it's that this team's problems aren't going to fix themselves, that the bounces maybe aren't going to even out over time like people were saying mere days ago, and that even consistent good play can't be counted on to produce results.

We are in a world of hurt here and don't have a glorified history to fall back on. In a small, Canadian market with a hockey-crazed fan base that wants a winning team, what is there to lose? The Flames built on the momentum of one successful season and dragged it on for as long as humanly possible. Clearly, that is no way to build a team that is going to be consistently competitive in the future.

Am I suggesting that the Flames hire a new general manager, scrap everything, and rebuild? No, there are some very good players on this team and others that they could probably do without, but when you're not getting results, changes have to be made, and not just to the coaching staff. Maybe tanking the remainder of the season in hopes for a shot at Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin isn't such a bad idea after all. Then again, the Flames would probably use their pick to draft some unheard-of centreman with hands of stone because of his "size."

I am envious of Oilers, Senators, and Leafs fans. You know what you're getting, straight up: a shitty team that probably isn't going to make the playoffs. What do we get? A team that parades around like a big tease, looking all shiny and promising and talented, only to prove year after year that it's nothing but a facade. False advertising. And every year we fall for it, buy into the hype, ignore the warning signs, only to have our hearts broken yet again. The Flames are the man-eaters of the NHL.

You'd think we'd know better by now, but alas, our vision is clouded by unconditional love for a franchise with little indication of long-term improvement and/or gratification. Such is the plight of a sports fan, I suppose.

I don't know what the solution to the Flames' problems are. I don't really know anything apart from the fact that, for some reason unbeknownst to me, I love this team and want them to do well. Any decision that somehow facilitates that is alright with me.

Somehow, this post has transitioned from unadulterated anger to quiet acceptance. Funny how that happens.

Chicago on Thursday.

Cheer when they're up, cheer harder when they're down. And boy, are they ever down.

Go Flames Go.

I want Craig Anderson dead

Seriously, how many times can this happen?

Aside from a ten-minute lapse which saw the Avs score twice to tie the game at two in the second period, the Flames dominated this game. They fired fourty-six shots at Craig Anderson and were gifted with a powerplay in the dying minutes of regulation, which carried over into an eventual two-man advantage in overtime, on which they failed to score.

As per usual in games against the Avs, the end result left me with a hoarse voice and the desire to chuck my BlackBerry at the nearest wall, like I did after the loss to Columbus on Friday. I know the Flames aren't exactly stacked offensively, but how can any team accumulate fourty-six shots on goal and only score twice? Yes, Anderson was good. He definitely stole the game for the Avs, but he is beatable, as the Flames proved earlier in the game. He also got plenty of help from the team in front of him, who blocked twenty-seven shots, and the Flames also missed the net on eleven attempts.

They weren't all top-quality shots, and the Flames sometimes appeared as if they were trying for the perfect play or the perfect shot, but at the end of the day, Anderson stopped all but two.

Which brings me to this conclusion:

I want Craig Anderson dead. I'll hire Keith Ballard if I have to.

He looks like a mouse and is too much of a goody-two-shoes to say "ass" on TSN (around the 1:25 mark).

Watching this team try to set up a play or a shot is sometimes painful. Watching the game at home, you can see that shooting or passing lanes are opening up, but the players don't take advantage. They pass when they should have shot and shoot when they should have passed. They wait too long and fire the puck into an opposing player's shinpads, often resulting in an odd-man rush against. Obviously, this is most evident on the powerplay, which the Flames haven't scored on for five straight games and have scored just three powerplay goals in their past eleven games. They had three prime opportunities to end the game with the man advantage and were unable to capitalize on them, which cost them the extra point.

Again, we all went into the season knowing that this team wasn't outrageously talented, but the inability to finish, with the man advantage when a point and sole possession of first place in the division is on the line, is unacceptable and needs to be rectified. Jarome Iginla is in the midst of a four-game pointless streak, and the Flames' secondary scoring has all but disappeared, with players like Dawes, Sjostrom, and Boyd (until tonight) experiencing lengthy droughts. I don't know if it's going to require something as simple as switching up the players on the first and second powerplay units, changing the strategy with the extra man, or acquiring a more creative forward, but it has to get better, especially with games against teams like the Penguins, Hawks, and Sharks coming up. This team's inability to finish is costing them points and wins, which become even more crucial as the season wears on and the division and conference standings become more highly contested.

I've said it before when this team has been struggling offensively, but that Ray Whitney deal which was supposedly close to fruition earlier this season may not be such a bad idea after all, especially if he scores goals like this, against Colorado to boot:

Think about it Darryl; for the sake of my (questionable) sanity.

Unrelated:

I hate Alex Burrows as much as the next Flames fan, but his shocking testimony of referee Stephane Auger's

pre-game threats and sub-sequent exaction (is that a word?) of revenge for previous grievances is a huge blow

to what little credibility NHL officials have left.

Up Next: The defending Stanley Cup champions are in town on Wednesday (7:30PM, TSN) for a game

which I have been begging for tickets to since before the Flames' schedule was announced. I will be living

vicariously through those of you in attendance.

Go Flames Go.

3/6 Canadian coaches and John Tortorella are really f--ing pissed

Brent Sutter joined Pat Quinn and Ron Wilson in a trifecta of angry bench bosses North of the border in his post-game tirade after the Flames' 3-2 loss to the cellar-dwelling Blue Jackets. It wasn't quite on par with a John Tortorella-esque profanity-laced meltdown, but it ranked pretty high on the Brent Sutter Surliness Meter. Watch the video, since I can't be bothered to type it out verbatim:

Everyone wants a consistent, predictable hockey team. We want to know that they are going to come out and play a specific style of game every night, and when they don't, they'll do it the next night. Coming from New Jersey, one of the most consistent franchises of all time, this situation is obviously new to Sutter. Sure, there was an adjustment period when he took over coaching duties and the team learnt his "systems," but they still earned a 46-29-7 record, good for ninety-nine points, in 2007-08. The season after that? Even better; the Devils went 51-27-4 with 106 points in a year where Martin Brodeur missed a good chunk of the season due to injury.

The New Jersey franchise has long been the picture of success and consistency. The players within the organization know what is expected of them night in and night out: to be responsible defensively and still score enough goals to beat the opposition. This is not an uncommon philosophy, and one that the Sutter brothers clearly share. Players that have been in Calgary long enough--Iginla, Conroy, Langkow, Regehr--know that this is what is expected of them. What else can a coach or a general manager do or say to reinforce this? The onus really is on the players.

The fact of the matter is, this team simply isn't talented enough to live up to the lofty expectations placed upon it. They are not built to excel in the regular season, nevermind the playoffs. From the crease to the blueline, sure, but even then I have my doubts, namely about Robyn Regehr's health and Dion Phaneuf's career potential. Up front is where the real problems begin. Anything more than the production we are currently seeing from the forwards is simply overachievement, as we learnt at the beginning of the season. Sure, the defence could chip in a little more, but that's not what they're there for. Your top-six guys are supposed to carry the team, and the bottom six guys are meant to provide supplementary scoring when the big guns can't get it done. As of now, not a single forward on this team is fulfilling their role. The fact that the Flames don't really have much of a distinction between top-six and bottom-six on their roster outside of three, maybe four forwards is where the situation gets even more convoluted.

I am well aware that the Flames aren't the only team in the league with this problem. If they had a real first line that didn't rely on offensive production from AHL call-ups, they might be able to mask the problem a little better. While a trade for a top-six forward still seems like the most viable solution to this team's problems, there is still the matter of said forward finding chemistry with teammates and fitting into the lineup at his desired position. Sometimes, that doesn't happen (ie: Tanguay, Jokinen). The Flames seem to have bad luck in trading for the aforementioned coveted first-liner, and Cammalleri was really the only one that had success in that position, but Darryl screwed that one up royally when he acquired Jokinen at last year's trade deadline.

I don't want to perpetuate any rumours circulating out there on the web, but if there is any truth to the claims that scouts from several teams have been in attendance at some of the Flames' recent games, a deal could be more imminent than anyone in the organization is willing to let on. The Flames' well documented surplus in defencemen fuels speculation that a blueliner could be on the move, in return for some scoring help. Then again, Hockey Buzz has Olli Jokinen on the move to Nashville, which I would truly love to believe.

As for tonight's game, the Flames had some bad puck luck and the stats weren't all that bad (I think), but their effort wasn't near good enough in all zones. Too many turnovers, odd-man rushes, lax defensive coverage, not enough shots on goal, and bad decisions with the puck all added up to a Flames loss; their second in a row and second to a non-playoff team. These are invaluable points, up for grabs against a team that shouldn't be beating the Flames at all, never mind in their own building.

If this was all they could muster against the Blue Jackets, I hate to imagine what the end result of tomorrow's game in Vancouver (8PM, CBC) will be. Playing a rested Canucks team that has gone 11-1-2 in their past fourteen games, boasting the league's hottest line, on the second night of back-to-backs on the road undoubtably equals one massive failure. I'm considering taking bets on the over/under for how many goals the Sedin-Sedin-Burrows line will score in the first period alone. I'm past the point where I hope for miracles against good teams, or hope to be pleasantly surprised by this team's performance. I usually know when to expect a win, and when to expect a loss. The Flames' upcoming schedule will not be kind to them in terms of results, and as hard as I'm trying to accept that, I know I'll still be disappointed when they lose; and that's the worst part of it all.

Being a fan is not an easy job. Trying to put it into words is even harder.

Go Flames Go.

Second rule of pessimism: Things can only get worse

Need I say more?

The Flames lost again. As if the Holiday season wasn't depressing enough already.

Kiprusoff's Toskala-esque gaffe was only part of the problem tonight as the Flames were the victims of a 5-1 spanking at home against the Canucks, a team that they are supposedly "competing" with for top spot in the Northwest division. Despite taking the lead seven minutes into the first period on a nifty tip-in by Jarome Iginla, the Flames failed to incur any further damage, surrendering four unanswered goals in the first period before Kiprusoff was mercifully yanked and Curtis McElhinney was summoned from the bench to stop the bleeding. McElhinney stopped fourteen of the fifteen shots he faced in two periods of play. The Flames' failure to get off to a good start at home and stay out of the penalty box cost them in a game where second place in the division was on the line, against a team playing its second game in as many nights.

Once again, the Flames succumbed to pitiful offensive production and abysmal play in their own zone, and have squandered a healthy nine-point division lead to Mason Raymond and those shifty bastards from the West Coast. Maybe they were all just as incensed as Mikael Samuelsson upon hearing the news that he didn't make the Swedish Olympic team; I can't think of much else that would have brought on such an inspired performance, with the exception of the opportunity to overtake a divisional rival in the standings. Perhaps it all has something to do with this (or nothing at all, I was just looking for an excuse to work this video into my post and avoid going into further detail about a game I didn't watch):

That's Dion Phaneuf drunkenly rocking out to Billy Joel's "Piano Man" at a piano bar, apparently in Vegas, courtesy of TMZ. The guy in the white shirt is totally digging it, and the "Merry fucking Christmas" at the end really adds a nice touch. Stay classy, Dion.

I'm not about to get all ethical and over-analytical on you and claim that a twenty-four-year-old hockey player utilizing his notoriety and having a good time in Vegas is detrimental to the team and at the root of their recent struggles, but it can't be beneficial; especially since this team appears to have the character and mental fortitude of a cardboard box right now.

The Flames stumble into Edmonton tomorrow with about as much dignity as that annihilated-drunk girl at the party who just lost her virginity on the living room couch and then proceeded to vomit profusely. I'm all about the analogies this week.

Pride and a much-needed two points are on the line tomorrow night; the Oilers have lost six straight games while the Flames have lost six of their last seven. It's not as if Flames fans have had to endure an agonizing fall from grace or a seemingly endless parade to IR, but it's enough to get us feeling sorry for ourselves. We're in quite the tough spot here; we don't have a good enough team to expect consistent dominance and too much talent to accept constant losing. It's hard to imagine that things could get much worse for a team that was once again expected to make some noise in the West this season, but as far as the pessimist in me is concerned, they very well could. Every pessimist is really an optimist at heart who tries to suppress her expectations for fear of disappointment. Even though I knew the Flames were down 4-1 when I left the hotel, part of me hoped I would return to news of a 5-4 overtime victory for the good guys.

Second rule of pessimism: Things can only get worse.

I threatened to become an L.A. Kings fan tonight. It might just happen if I stay in California any longer.

Game time is 7PM on Sportsnet West. Get drunk and cry for me.

I've essentially given up on all superstitions at this point, so what the hell:

Go Flames Go.

PS: Misery loves company, so check out my Q&A with Oilers blogger Jay from Low on Oil here.

And it's back...

Well that was a nice little one-game respite from losing, wasn't it?

It appears that the sloppy defence displayed by the Flames in the third period of their win against the Kings on Thursday night carried over into this afternoon's contest with the Predators. After all the hullabaloo about how they had to be prepared for the early start time, how they had to adjust their game day routines, the Flames came out predictably flat and surrendered the first goal of the game just four and a half minutes in, when Martin Erat managed to get a weak wrist shot past Kiprusoff despite having three Flames skaters converge on him.

The Preds weren't done there, as David Legwand out-battled Jay Bouwmeester in front of the Flames net to put Nashville up 2-0 eight minutes later just as a questionable roughing penalty assessed to David Moss had expired. The Flames would get one back just over a minute later on the powerplay, as Phaneuf fired home his second PPG in as many games to close out the period with his team down by one and momentum on their side.

The Flames utilized that momentum nicely in the second period, as Jarome Iginla snapped an eight-game scoring drought with one of his patented snapshots from the wing, which went off the inside of the post and in. When Iggy scores, he scores in bunches, and he was at it again around the midway mark of the period. Alone in front of the Predator's net, Iginla scooped up his own rebound and poked it past an outstretched Ellis from one knee to give the Flames their first lead of the game. It was a dandy individual effort, but I couldn't find a video of it, so here's one of Brian McGrattan taking on Wade Belak instead:

McGrattan FTW.

The Flames continued to pour on the pressure, outshooting Nashville 15-6 in the middle frame, and had many glorious opportunities to take a two-goal lead. In typical karmic fashion, those missed chances would come back to haunt them and the Predators squared the affair at three with just under three minutes remaining in the second.

The third period would begin much the same as the first; four minutes into the final frame, the Predators set up in Flames zone and started cycling the puck around the boards, somehow eluding every Flame on the ice. The frozen disc eventually made its way back to Cody Franson at the point, who fired it netward where it glanced off of Daymond Langkow, past Kiprusoff, and into the net. Queue the comeback routine. The Flames fire everything in their arsenal towards the Predators' net but can't manage to beat Ellis, who stopped all ten shots in the third period and got lucky on misses by Rene Bourque and Olli Jokinen, who likely couldn't hit a barn door right now. The Flames never really came close to tying the game with Kiprusoff pulled in the final minute, and Dave Scatchard iced the game for the Preds with an empty-netter at 19:34.

This game irritated me on many levels. The Flames simply cannot afford to start games the way they did today, especially at home. The Predators established an instant presence in the Flames' zone, drew a penalty off a turnover, and scored their first goal largely due to a lazy play by Dion Phaneuf behind the Flames net. The first period was once a strong point for this team, and we've seen that trend reverse since the beginning of the month. The Flames can't seem to stay out of the box in the opening frame, and have trouble establishing themselves in the offensive zone. A bad first period only puts a team behind the eight-ball for the remaining fourty-minutes of the game, and the Flames were fortunate enough to overcome a less-than-impressive opening frame this afternoon.

Turnovers killed this team today, simply put. At one point, the Flames had committed sixteen giveaways compared to the Predators' eight. It's nearly impossible to win a game with that many turnovers, especially when your goaltender isn't performing at his usual levels of excellence, as we saw today with Kiprusoff. He deserves some of the blame for allowing four goals on twenty shots, but giveaways by the forwards and lazy play by the Flames' defencemen kick-started the process. The lack of compete level from this team's high-priced blueliners in this game was appalling. They lost puck battles along the boards in the defensive zone, failed to track down opposing forwards, and intercepting passes or blocking shots was seemingly out of the question. Jay Bouwmeester was on the wrong side of an even +/- for the third time in four games; Mark Giordano was a -2 after one of the best games of his career on Thursday. Daymond Langkow and Nigel Dawes both finished the afternoon -3, while Rene Bourque was a team-worst -4.

The physical element that was instrumental in the Flames' victory over the Kings was almost entirely absent from this game. They fell victim to Nashville's speedy, back-and-forth style of play and weren't able to even the score when it mattered. Nothing new really. Good teams find a way to win in adverse situations; clearly the Flames can't count themselves amongst those teams until they are able to do just that.

Outshooting a team for the first time in four games is nice. Iginla busting out of his scoring slump with two goals and an assist is also a plus. Winning the faceoff battle for once is good; but this league is based on results, and it's hard to recognize the positives in a game where this team let a victory slip away and didn't get the results they needed: the two points. I don't think I need to stress the importance of winning in the Western Conference any further. With this loss, the Flames fall to second in the division and sixth in the conference as Colorado takes over top spot with a 5-2 win over Columbus. A record of 3-5-1 in the month of December has cost the Flames a shot at first place in the West and leaves them only three points ahead of the eighth-place Red Wings as the half-way point of the season draws closer. If it wasn't for a 10-2-2 November, this team would likely find itself out of a playoff spot.

The Flames are now off until Wednesday, when they'll play the Blues in their final game before the Christmas break. I don't know how this team is going to utilize its practice time or how they will respond in a game after three days' rest, but my expectation levels have been significantly reduced for the time being. A record of 9-6-1 at home is nothing to be proud of, and upcoming games against the Canucks, Oilers, and Kings at the 'Dome will be crucial in determining where the Flames stand fourty-one games in.

Right now, it's not looking good.

An open letter to the Flames/My checklist for tonight's game

Dear Choke Artists,

Get your fucking shit together.

Yours Truly,

Hayley xoxo

Strangely, I woke up this morning more angry at this team than I was last night. I just cannot believe the sheer lack of effort we witnessed in Chicago. Clearly, Brent Sutter's mini-games theory did not resonate with his players "between the ears." It seems like it's going to take a miracle to motivate this team to play sixty minutes, but it starts with improving upon the smaller aspects of the game that might seem insignificant, but are key to any team's success. I have compiled a checklist of things I want to see this team improve upon tonight against CBJ:

• Shots on goal: this getting outshot by a 2-1 margin thing needs to stop. In the last two periods of last night's game, not including overtime, the Flames fired 10 shots at the Chicago net. That's five shots per period. How is this team supposed to score if they aren't shooting? They have to start throwing everything at the net, and if a few shots go in--bonus. What's going to happen when they run into a hot goalie, like they are bound to tonight in Steve Mason? The Blue Jackets will be laughing all the way to the bank with two points in hand if the Flames fail to direct more than twenty pucks Mason's way.
• Faceoffs: Where to start? I am in disbelief about how horrendous the Flames have been in the faceoff circle. Here are the stats from last night's game:

FACE-OFF SUMMARY (Face-offs Won-Face-offs Total / Percentage)

EV PP SH TOT 21-55/38% 1-1/100% 1-8/13% 23-64/36% EV PP SH TOT 34-55/62% 7-8/88% 0-1/0% 41-64/64%

38% on even strength faceoffs? 13% on shorthanded faceoffs? 36% total faceoff percentage? I'm sorry, but how is this team ever supposed to win games with such an atrocious faceoff performance? If you don't win faceoffs, you don't have puck possession, which means you can't score, you can't get the puck out of your zone, and so on. I think this is an area where they really miss a guy like Matthew Lombardi. If the Flames want to become a better puck possession team, they'd better start winning some faceoffs ASAP.

• Pushing back when they have the lead: "We were getting rid of it (the puck) a little too quick, all of us all the way around. When you don't have composure, that's the result,"--Jarome Iginla. We've all heard this refrain too many times to count, and frankly Brent Sutter is already starting to sound like a broken record. This team knows what they have to do, they've all being playing hockey for years, even decades. They know they can't sit back when they have the lead, let the other team takeover the play, and expect to win the game. They have to bring the same level of intensity to games when they have the lead as they do when playing from behind.
• Defence: I was thrilled to learn that the Flames were amongst the league leaders in shot-blocking. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be willing to keep those numbers up. I am a proponent for defence-first hockey, always have been. While I don't advocate playing the trap, I still believe in the phrase "the best offence is a good defence" to some degree. If this team could allow less than three goals a game, that would be superb. Kiprusoff has already proved that he can steal a game for his team when necessary, now the high-priced blueline brigade must return the favour.
• The lines: When is Sutter going to give up on the Jokinen-Iginla experiment? With David Moss out with an "upper body injury" the left-wing spot on the first line is in a perpetual state of limbo, and is thus affecting the chemistry on other lines, namely the fourth line trio of Nystrom-Sjostrom-Prust. Since the second line has struggled recently (they were a combined -8 in last night's loss), I would advocate putting Bourque on the first line with Iginla and Jokinen or even moving both Langkow and Bourque onto the first line with the captain and moving Glencross up to the second line. Unless the Flames call up someone other than McGrattan, the fourth line will still be subject to change due to having to move certain players around to fill the gaps.

The same goes for the defensive pairings. Now that Sarich is healthy, I would have anticipated that Bouwmeester would move to the first pairing with Regehr and Phaneuf would move down to the second with either Giordano or Sarich. Regehr is struggling and I think a calm, stable influence like Bouwmeester would help even him out. The same thing could be said of Phaneuf and Sarich, who along with Adam Pardy, were the only d-men to finish with an even or positive +/- in last night's debacle in the Windy City.

The Flames are in tough against a Blue Jackets squad that's off to their best start in franchise history, in a building that hasn't been kind to them over the years. Not to mention they will be playing on the road, in the second half of back-to-back games. Frankly, I don't care if they win or lose this game, all I want to see is a consistent sixty-minute effort so I at least know that this team is capable of it, because I'm really beginning to doubt it.

R.I.P. defence, among other things

The Calgary Flames have given me little to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, apart from the fact that I managed to keep my turkey dinner down after learning the result of tonight's game.

The Flames came charging out of the gate on Thanksgiving/Columbus Day at the United Centre and scored five goals in just 5:29 in the first period. They entered the first intermission with a healthy four-goal lead, despite being outshot 16-10. The Flames, under the impression that the game was over, then packed up and went back to their hotel for a nice turkey dinner. The End. Little did they know, there was still two periods of hockey left to be played. The Blackhawks made the most of their opponents' disappearing act, scoring four unanswered goals to tie the game up at five, outshooting the visitors 40-20 in the process. They then went on to score the winner just 0:26 into overtime, on only their second shot of the short sudden-death period.

I return from a lovely weekend in Victoria and this is how Calgary decides to welcome me home? Frigid weather and news of the Flames blowing a huge lead and losing in overtime to the Blackhawks, one of the only teams outside of the Northwest Division that I hold such a high level of disdain for? What a shitty day to be a Calgary sports fan. Should we have been expecting this after a 4-0 start lulled us into a false sense of security? Yes, we probably should have seen the signs, heeded Coach Sutter's warnings. Shouldn't this team be improving every game, on their way to becoming the hard-nosed, defensive-minded squad that plays tough at both ends of the ice, the one that the GM and the new coaching staff promised we would see this off-season?

Instead, they are getting wildly outshot almost every game, giving up far too many good quality scoring chances, and are not playing anything that remotely resembles the physical, puck-possession game emphasized by the Sutters. I don't know what the hell is wrong with this team. I don't know why they become completely submissive when holding any sort of lead or why they can't play "Flames hockey" for sixty minutes, I don't know why they can't win a faceoff, I don't know what is wrong with Robyn Regehr, and I certainly don't know why the first line isn't clicking; but I do know that any team hoping to contend for a division title, a playoff spot, let alone a Stanley Cup Championship cannot blow a five goal lead and go on to lose the game in overtime. I don't want to come off as a drama queen, overreacting to every loss and every setback, but with the results of the last two games combined, I'm unnerved to say the least.

I don't really know how to treat this loss...a lesson to be learned, a fluke, a sign of things to come? Right now I still can't really believe it happened, even though scoring five quick goals seemed too good to be true, especially against a team like the Blackhawks, I hoped, however foolishly, that the good guys would emerge unscathed and victorious. I would like to have hope that the Flames will use this game as motivation, that they will come out flying and turn in a convincing effort against Steve Mason and the Blue Jackets tomorrow night (5 PM MT), but I can't seem to find any reason to at the moment.

I suppose we will see what this team is really made of tomorrow night. Will they come out kicking ass and taking names to avenge this embarrassing loss, or will they give up and fold like a broken lawn chair? I would very much like to believe the former.

The fact that two of the Flames' top-six forwards (Moss and Dawes) are now injured and Curtis McElhinney will likely get the start tomorrow night after Kiprusoff's 34-save performance does little to ease the feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. The only positive I can extract from this steaming mess is that it happened in October and not April, which means there is still plenty of time for Brent Sutter to open up a can of whoop-ass forceful enough to ensure that this NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to pop a few Advil and go to bed.