"That's appetizer"

Well, one afternoon into the annual free-agent signing rush, and I am increasingly pleased the Flames have stayed out of it.

Sundin?
Rolston?
Brian Campbell?

Jeff Finger?
Mike Commodore?

Pure ridiculousness.

On the Calgary front, I'm not displeased to see Cujo and Godard go; that said, we do need a player not named "Iginla" or "Phaneuf" to fight fights next year. And while they haven't been out and out shooed out of town yet, can't disagree with what's happening with Warrener and Eriksson.

Nilson, on the other hand, that's a WHOLE 'nother matter.

On the whole Tanguay/Cammalleri draft day tangle, we've stayed fairly silent here; I'm still waiting to see what happens with the cap savings before I deliver a final verdict of any sort. It's unlikely the team this year will be as good as it was in previous recent years, but... I need to see how bad the damage is.

So what's next? Well... I guess we get to see what happens to Huselius etc etc. And, we could use something to shore up those first two lines.

Damn you, Anders Eriksson.

And yes, JR. You are still a doofus.

No Joke

Hi boys:

Me again. Just get it over with, alrighty? Get it out of your system, or get out of the playoffs. I hear Quebec and Halifax City are scenic, this time of year...

Catch my drift? Yeah.

Don't fuck up.

Love,

Leanne

That's one to be purged from my memories

Nicely done, Leanne. Your prediction was almost spot on, but you were off-by-one^H^H^H^HSegmentation fault (core dumped).

(I make no apologies for this post, this team deserves it tonight).

From the "where are they now?" Files

I had an awful suspicion while looking at Mirtle's post about scoring leaders in the preseason.

That's right kids! I'm having a Brennan Evans moment!

(And for those of you non-believers, look at that sweater he's wearing in the pic. That definitely ain't teal. Yet.)

Dear Pre-season Flames,

As Dave noted, it's a bit early, but I have tickets for Saturday and Tuesday (thanks to the best parents ever, and their season-ticket-owning co-workers), and I want to send a good report card for you to HG?

I'm just saying.

Love,

Leanne
(not worried yet. YET.)

More goals for the playoffs

So. I had some time to think about more things I wanted to do during the playoffs.

1. Grin madly when I hear the broadcast tandem use the title of our blog in the course of normal conversation
2. Take deep breaths
3. Listen to Peter Maher more when we get Don Wittman and Drew. Screw this whole TV thing with the moving pictures.
4. Not watch games when the guys don't actually bother flying out to the other city to play
5. Realize that with the TV off, you can't see what sort of fashion atrocity Playfair is committing
6. Remember ulcers aren't worth it.
7. Remind myself that yes, other rinks are allowed to play Ring of Fire, it doesn't necessarily imply a cut direct when the other guys play it. My. Ass.
8. Keep on reminding all our readers there that just because it's NHL playoff time, doesn't mean they're allowed to ignore that other team in Calgary...you know...the ones with the fantabulous playoff run to date? What are they doing with the lowest attendance all season? Fuck that.
9. Spend more quality time on the phone with the parents so you can say insightful things, such as "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
10. Remember my expectations were much much lower not more than oh, three years ago
11. Work really hard on trying not to cry

Game? What game? Oh, right. That. Read what HG has to say. She said it all.

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt

I have to admit, I've been trying to stay away from the Flames this weekend. No reading the papers online, barely touched all the goodness that is the hockey blogosphere. I did listen to part of the game before it was time to hit the bar for St. Paddy's, but sigh, I heard enough.

Part of it was the exhaustion that resulted from doing the liveblog the other night. It was a lot of fun, I was flattered that so many of you stopped by and camped out, and I totally want to do it again. But it was more tiring than I might have thought it might be. Worth it though!

The other bit is (as everybody I'm sure is doing) trying to decide whether I want to look hard at the Flames right now. The way the last couple of weeks have been, I wonder whether they're so brittle that looking at them the wrong way might just break them into little pieces.

It doesn't look good, does it? The abysmal road record wasn't much more than a curiosity going into this month. Now it's a glaring weakness. The idle speculation we had about Playfair and how he might feel about his job security has turned into a fairly common rant amongst Flames fans and the mainstream media. We've dropped two games against divisional opponents over the last couple of days, and Colorado is within striking distance as of tonight, a mere four points away.

And it gets worse. The remnants of our last real homestand before the playoffs consist of games with Nashville and Detroit. The remnants of our season consist of a road-heavy schedule against teams we won't eat for breakfast (or midnight snacks).

I don't know where we're going. I'm not ready to do a post-mortem on the season (and post-season) that was, but at the same time, I have to acknowledge that it doesn't look good, eternal optimist though I am. I don't see Sutter deciding to walk into the dressing room tomorrow and taking over - I am convinced at this point that barring, say, a Stanley Cup win, Playfair will have a different job next year, with the Flames organization, or outside of it.

I will say this much more. If the guys can pull through this and fight to keep that playoff spot, I will be much more confident about their chances making it through more than one round of the playoffs. They will have managed to prove that they can pull together through adversity, through challenges, through a whole lot of shit that's getting thrown at them.

Will it happen? I dunno...

This just in: Bigfoot spotted

Flames got a SHOOTOUT WIN

...

against MINNESOTA.

This is MOMENTOUS!

Glory be to Kipper and Iggy.

I am overjoyed. Too overjoyed to type coherently.