Four Guys To Take On Chicago

Jarome Arthur-Leigh Adekunle Tig Junior Elvis Iginla, Miikka Sakari Kiprusoff, and Robyn Regehr recently welcomed into their new family an adopted boy named Dion Phaneuf. These four brave men alone will take on the ferocious Chicago Blackhawks in a battle of the ages tonight.

Will they take the night off, like the Edmonton game; or will they show up, like the last 15 minutes of the Phoenix game? My money is on "show up", Iggy's last second(s) goal in the Phoenix game is remarkably similar to one earlier this season in the last second(s) against the tenacious Florida Panthers. My completely unbiased heart tells me this will be the start of another streak.

I've got some concerns over the top-heavyness of the roster starting next season. But ultimately, like virtually every other Flames fan, I'm thrilled Dion will be with the team for many years to come. The cap will go up, but at what point does the ownership group set their own cap for how much they can pay? I'm starting to think we're approaching the ownership's cap, and it does concern me slightly.

I also think it's time to post some Fantasy hockey standings for the Sporting News league I'm in with Leanne:
#1. Marcus Nilson Allstars: 1294 (this is me)
#2. Leafs Still Suck: 1281
#3: The Zack Stortini Hug-Fighters: 1013
#4: P Rod's Punishers: 905
#5: Timbit's Hockey: 885 (only players 5'11" and under)
#6: Team Affirmative Action: 697 (visible minorities only)
#7: number 9: 681

And LASTly:
#8: Leanne: 594

Booya indeed, Leanne!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOYA

It's a bit more expensive than I wanted, but looks like we bagged Phaneuf for another 6 years. It's roughly $6.5 M/year according to all sorts of sources I haven't bothered to verify yet.

Overall? A bit more expensive than we probably want, but them's the prices...

As for Huselius/Langkow/Tanguay/10 other guys next year?

Sigh.

(Can I just add that Nilson played last night, and we won? I'm just saying)

Did I mention I think this is a touch expensive?

Update: TSN has the story here

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).

Happy Belated Everything!

So this time last year (thereabouts), a bunch of blogs were born.

Happy first anniversary to all our other co-Flames bloggers out there. It's been a crazy year, and I'm (and I assume Dave is too) delighted to have met many of you on occasion.

How crazy a year has it been? Let me present to you our year in fabulous, hilarious greatest hits, Open Ice Hits style:

Dear Road Flames
Liveblog vs Dallas: the Kill me Now edition
Dave's not-quite excellent adventure in Detroit
Oh, Captain, our Captain
All hail Nilson!

(And yes, I know the end of the month has passed. I'm not kidding about the belated-everything of the post title. Fantasy standings up shortly. Really. Just let me climb on top again.)

So tonight we're playing the Oilers in what will be a momentous (I'm hoping not) first start for Curtis Joseph, the ex-Coyote, ex-Leaf, ex-Oiler, ex-ex midseason signing we made. It'll be a momentous start also for the Oilers' newly acquired Curtis Glencross, who tanned our asses last time the Jackets were in town (alas, I had front row seats to the tanning, and thus actually didn't get a good look at anything).

Should be a good game for us, not so good a game for our surly hosts. 5-1. Iggy with the half-Nilson hat trick.

Back in Action

Eight days is WAY too long, though surely, we've already mentioned this.

So... San Jose is a darn decent team. We should beware, especially with as much rust as I anticipate seeing, after a very slack two or so weeks. I don't expect that their acquisition of Jody Shelley changes things much for us, except that Godard probably gets some time away from the press box.

It's important for us to come out of the gate hard, even with Eriksson apparently all better now. The schedule doesn't get a lot easier over the next couple of weeks, so it'll be good if we can build some momentum.

I had the good fortune of watching the Hitmen at the 'Dome last night (for free!), and it was a one-sided affair against the Kootenay Ice. The Hitmen just spanked the Ice. They built a 3-0 lead within the first five minutes (resulting in the Ice's starter getting yanked after four shots), and stayed ahead the rest of the night.

Particularly cool on the scouting front was getting to watch John Negrin (now with Kootenay) play in a real game setting. He'll be... fine. Obviously he's a bit more at home halfway through the season in the WHL than in an NHL training camp, but he was much improved from September. He seemed to show some good sense, made a bunch of smart plays, (not surprisingly) isn't afraid of the physical stuff and was the Ice's go-to guy on special teams. He definitely needs some more time to grow, but I could see him being a third or fourth D-man in a couple of years, with an eye to moving up the depth chart. I do think for now he needs another season at least of development, whether it's still in the W (he's only 18, after all) or in the AHL (my preference).

Anyways, that was good times. It's been a long while since I last went to see the Hitmen, and it was a lot of fun. Hopefully the Flames can make it two nights in a row for good times in the 'Dome...

(Superstitiously NOT making a game-time prediction. But... go Flames.)

Anyone have a toddler and a box of crayons?

Flames not playing games watch: We're about halfway through our eight day break. Just DYING of boredom here (if not for things like school and work and getting on with our actual lives, such as the all-weekend Lost marathon, and watching foreign movies only two other people have heard of...)

So we did some looking about the intarweb, and have come up with some things by which you can entertain yourself. But! Don't forget the AllStar game!



(Now that we've pimped the game for Versus, our mugs are in the mail, right? Right?)

What else can we do? There's video fun, from MG and the ole CBC.

And speaking of video fun, and the CBC, if you haven't amused yourself enough, check out this handy dandy time-waster. I've never been so glad somebody has used my tax dollars to harness the power of Web 2.0. See?

Wednesday cannot come soon enough.

Vacation was LAST month...

I'm left cursing the NHL schedule again. Curses! What do you mean there's exactly one Flames game a week from last Friday till next Friday? I'm not disputing the guys need a break, but really, we should pack in as many games as possible before Eriksson feels better.

I'm not kidding!

I meant to do a post-game about last night's tilt a bit earlier, but alas, alas...

It's amazing how much better Matthew Lombardi looks (not that he isn't already lookin' good, heh) when he's not babysitting Boyd or Nystrom. Simply amazing. Though I was a bit surprised that he and Yelle turned out to be such a good combo offensively. I would have put them as strictly a PK tandem...

And Tanguay. I understand the mathematics of the salary cap, but I don't think there was a better cogent argument against trading him than seeing him all pissed off and afire last night. He's usually much more chill than that...it's nice to see him pour it on.

(Note to Fletcher: No, we're not giving him up for Gary Leeman. No! Not even Gary Leeman AND Doug Gilmour...)

And no, I didn't miss Eriksson. While the D was by no means air-tight, it was much improved.

This was the sort of game I think I needed to see the Flames win again. Tight, low-scoring, boring as all hell. Lately, these sorts of games have been the ones that have eluded them, whether they're being hypnotized by the Isles or flat out asleep against Nashville. We've seen more than enough this season already though - we're not out of the woods yet.

Overall, I'm feeling pretty good headed into the All-Star Break. Team looks good, team is mostly healthy, Kipper is in fine form again (hopefully he doesn't spend a week in Aruba and lose his edge over the break).

Hopefully Huselius will continue to show us some fine fine moves. How about that off-the-leg-and-into-the-net-trick? YES?

I have a few plans to keep us all entertained while we wait for the games to start again.

For one, Dave and I usually do a Sporting News fantasy league or two to while away the season. A new season starts up after the All-Star Break, and any of you who are interested in joining up should drop us a line soon, in return for an invite. Yes, WI, that's you! And Kyle? And anyone else...

As the league stands...let's say I can guarantee you guys won't come in last. Dave already has a lock on that, right?

Dave?

Mindgames

It was instructive last night watching the U of C Dinos men's volleyball team take on the U of A. (Bear with me, I know this isn't the right sport for most of our readers quite yet)

When we got there, you couldn't really tell (I'm by no means a skilled spectator of volleyball) which team was going to win. Drills were the same, stretches were the same...

Then the game starts (the match is best of 5 games), and the U of C takes a respectable lead. Then shit starts happening. The U of A battles back, wins the game (which the U of C had a good chance of winning) 23-25. A nice close one. (Seeing a pattern? Let me draw it even further...)

Next game, it's clear the Dinos are rattled. Mistakes start piling up. Individually, they're trying a lot harder. They're swinging at the ball harder. They're taking more chances. But as a team, they're falling apart, because they're not really depending on their guys anymore. Now they lose 19-25. (See what I'm getting at now?)

Next game, there's no way the Dinos are winning. The U of A easily secures a six point lead that turns into an eight point lead that the Dinos just aren't going to catch up to. And the mistakes are getting worse. They're missing serves. They're hitting balls out of bounds. All of this due is the extra pressure they're putting on themselves, as individal players. This results in less creativity as a team, because you no longer trust your teammates to put together an elegant play that p0wns the other guys. YOU'RE going to be the guys who hauls your team's bacon out of the fire.

Why, if they were hockey players, you might even say, you've seen that game before.

Haven't we all?

I was startled by how similarly the Dinos last night and the Flames in the last week past reacted to adversity. As soon as the other team didn't roll over and play dead, they fell apart. They looked fragile. It struck me, how much of sports, at that high a level, is about what happens in the head as much as it is on the court or on the ice.

Stuff to think about, at any rate.

Anyways! When I went to check out some volleyball action, it seems like I missed a gooder of a game! Mind you, it wasn't exactly against the toughest competition this year has to offer...

What struck me, listening in on the festivities intermittently, is that our special teams were good. Especially the penalty kill. I've been meaning to bring up the number of PP chances we've been giving the opposition in weeks past... you can't do that and win the game. No way.

Anyways, good job, good job, and now we have an ENTIRE WEEKEND without the Flames playing. I believe they're doing their skills competition tomorrow (anyone going?), but with that and the All-Star game next week (a second ENTIRE WEEKENDwithout the Flames playing), who the hell designs the schedule?

Bah.

In other news, looks like we will not be able to complain about Don Wittman's play-by-play come playoff time. Rest in peace, all that good stuff.

Oops

Sorry about that. My bad.

Sooooo...who wants in on some lottery ticket action? :)

I'm going to just go over a few positives I saw in the game. I'm sure the negatives will be more than adequately covered later on.

David Moss! My, how I missed him. I thought he put a bit of extra jump into the Boyd/Lombardi combo which Keenan seems dead set on. Not that they were flawless tonight by any stretch... but nobody was, really, tonight.

Aucoin This means no Rhett Warrener for now. Do I need to explain this? No? Didn't think so. Moving right along...

McElhinney This is one of the few times this year I've been able to watch McElhinney objectively (the Columbus game where he sat two rows ahead of me doesn't count - he could have brought his PSP and a six of beer for all it mattered to the game), and I have to say I'm encouraged. He's really damn fast, and also kind of catlike, which is strongly reminiscent of Kipper's first days in Calgary. That said, he's a bit too eager to play the puck, has occasionally awkward positioning and is really small for a goalie at this level. Like, Theo Fleury small. But he's young and will fill out... if he can improve his puck handling and positioning, maybe this time next year we won't have to dial-a-Turek.

Tomorrow's another game day...Minnesota this time. Good god, the thought of Gaborik and Demitra unleashed on our ever-potent D does not a comfortable night's sleep make.

What is bigger than Chicago and smaller than Columbus?

Answer: Nashville*
(*This is an actual attempt I made at getting people to guess Nashville while playing Cranium Hoopla. You know, I named two Central Div teams, one of which doesn't have a franchise in any other majors leagues, and put them in the standings. I should have been playing with hockey fans...or even people who know Columbus and Nashville have NHL franchises. Alas.)

So...

Everybody take their flying leap off the bandwagon? Obviously the Flames still have some issues. Namely, with momentum. They will take any kind they can get, and magnify it a gazillion-fold. When we're winning, we're unstoppable. When we're losing, FORTHELOVEOFGOD JUSTFOLDTHEFRANCHISENOW!

And these same issues with momentum seem to play headgames with us especially when we're losing. The Phoenix and Edmonton games were so similar in terms of the guys not having the confidence to score (much less potting a goal anytime before the third period).

So... that means... we gotta... come out strong. Play a full 60 mins. Make sure our defence made it off the bus. Y'know, all that stuff.

Nashville has been doing pretty good even with some obvious injury issues. Radulov has been an emerging star, and the goaltending has stabilized to a large degree. Their weak point might be on defence, where Weber and Ryan Suter (I think) are still injured, but they're hardly the cornerstones of the Preds' d-corps anyways.

Oh. It was 7-4 last time we were in Nashville... let's say it's 3-0 this time.

By the way, I was looking over the YoungStars roster, and besides not containing any goalies, I have a random question: Who the HELL is Tyler Kennedy? And is he older than Sidney Crosby?