Bloody Sunday

I don't think there's been another game this year where I really do believe it's crunch time.

Matt Fenwick's weekly baseball standings tell the tale pretty clearly. And since then, Vancouver and Minnesota have put in wins. Nashville has won a game, and we must bashfully be grateful to that team up north for beating Phoenix.

The last two weeks have been as frustrating as last year's end-of-season implosion. It's a time of year when our playoff destiny should be in our own hands, and despite that, it's as if the team is stubbornly handing it off to other teams to decide.

We've been there before - many years of being near the bubble, only to have other, better teams decide they weren't going to let us in, where the Flames were "mathematically eliminated" in the middle of some dull game against another non-contender as Minnesota or somebody won another game elsewhere.

I would end my dreary musings there, but Jean Lefebve of the Herald reported yesterday that the D has been shuffled again; Eriksson is back with Phaneuf.

Oh, joy.

I expect Kipper will be back in net though, and so things will be better with the world. That said, Chicago is exactly the kind of team that'll kill you if you START SLOW, so geez, let's not do that. Let's also show up and play a full 60 minutes. It's amazing how that wins you games.