TIME FOR A WIN

As I write this the Flames have overcome a wretched start and tied the Sharks 2-2 in the second period. They had better win this game.

You often hear that the exhibition season does not matter in terms of wins and losses. I would argue that it does not matter in terms of wins. Chicago, for example, had an excellent record in the pre-season last year with 7 wins. However a preseason full of losses does matter. Unfortunately I cannot access any preseason records at the moment but in terms of dressing room atmosphere and fan and media pressure (in hockey markets at least) a string of losses cannot be dismissed as unimportant. I will track the teams that end the preseason with poor records to see if this year's statistics bear out this idea.

I expect at least 3 wins in the last 4 exhibition games so that I do not have to include the Flames in this group.

Review of the Past Month of Flames News

I'm back and happy to be so. I have the second Flames-Florida game on internet radio and several topics from the last month to comment on.

New Uniforms

Bleah! At least they are not as awful as the new Canucks uniforms. Still I'm not thrilled. They are too busy with too many weird stripes. The white socks say 'East German National team circa 1974' to me. I don't like the patches either. They do not really fit the look, especially the bland, wrong-coloured provincial one and they invite parody. At least they did not mess with the Flaming C crest. It would have been annoying to change my blog name so soon after starting it.

(woo-hoo Langkow just scored!)

Russian Defections

I was not sold on Giordiano and saw him as the 8th defenseman. Perhaps his game will improve in the Russian League and this will be a good situation for the Flames long-term. Taratukhin I do not understand his thinking. He had an extremely good chance to make this team and he seems to have thrown it away. I think there must be more to this story somehow. One thing I am certain of is that this tiff with the Russian Federation is the beginnings of a European division of the NHL. It will take some time to evolve but this is the seeds. I will expand on this later when I look at the schedule change issues.

First Exhibition Game

Every loss is a knife to the heart and even in the most meaningless game of the year it bothers me when they play so poorly. It just makes me think that they are still a vulnerable team that has a lot to learn about being winners. I want a Flames team that fills me with confidence despite a loss.

Backup Goalie Battle

I see Curtis McElhinney winning the job. Krahn and Keetley in Quad Cities (talk about bad uniforms) and Lalande in the ECHL. Irving goes back to the WHL and hopefully has a triumphant World Juniors at Christmas. What happens to Krahn after this year I don't know but it will not be in this organization.

That's all I have time for right now but it is nice to be posting again.

Schedule Analysis

I have been reading through the Flames schedule looking for anything interesting the past couple of days. Not too much really but here are some observations:

• 10 Sunday games, 2 of which are afternoon games (24 Feb @ Minnesota & 16 March @ Chicago)
• 6 Monday games, the least of any day.
• 19 Tuesday games, the most of any day
• 7 Wednesday games
• 14 Thursday games
• 10 Friday games
• 16 Saturday games, 12 of which are on HNiC

Of road trips or homestands lasting 4 games or more there are six:

• A 4-game road trip early in the season (games 3-6, Detroit, Dallas, Nashville, Colorado)
• Followed immediately by a 7-game homestand (games 7-13, Los Angeles, Edmonton, San Jose, Minnesota, Colorado, Nashville, Detroit)
• A 6-game road trip in December (games 30-35, Chicago, Florida, Tampa Bay, Carolina, St Louis, Columbus)
• A 4-game homestand broken up by the All-Star game (games 49-52, Los Angeles, Minnesota, San Jose, Dallas). After a quick trip to Edmonton the Flames have 3 more games at home making 7 home games in 8.
• A 5-game road trip right after the 7 in 8. (games 57-61, San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Phoenix, Dallas)
• A 4-game trip in mid-March (games 70-73, washington, Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus)
• A 4-game road trip to end the season (games 79-82, Vancouver, Edmonton, Minnesota, Vancouver)

That final four on the road is a little worrying as they could be important. Nine of the last thirteen are on the road so let's hope the team has more success on the road this season. Compared to last year's road schedule there are a few more 4-or-more game road trips. Last year there was two 4-game trips, one at the beginning of the season (games 4-7) and one near the end (games 76-79) and a 6-game trip just before Christmas (games 29-34). I like this better I think. Get the travel out of the way in bigger chunks. I don't know if they are truly comparable but years ago I had to make trips to three centres in Poland plus Prague and Moscow from my German office and I would go to great lengths to put all the visits together in one week rather than spreading them throughout the month. It made it feel like one effort rather than several comings and goings.

Another thing I notice is that there are no home-and-home meetings. I love those. Really gets my hate on for the Oilers and Canucks. I notice the Oilers have two (versus Vancouver and Minnesota) and those are the only home-and-homes for Vancouver and Minnesota.

I have some strong feelings on the schedule and I hope to post my grand plan for improving it at some point during the season. There is just too much St Louis and Phoenix, for example, on our plate.

There are 21 games televised nationally, 20 in Canada and 1 in the US. Important to people like me who live outside the Flames regional telecast area. Fourteen are on Hockey Night in Canada, two of them on a Thursday including the season opener. Six on TSN and one, against Detroit on the US cable station Versus. I would get the Centre ice package but then I would get nothing else in my life accomplished.

Go Flames Go

pmc

Attention New Hockey Bloggers

If you are just starting out as a hockey blogger like me this is an instructive/humourous post over at Barry Melrose Rocks. Make sure you read the comments as well.

Barry Melrose Rocks: A Handy Guide for Beginners: Hockey Blogging

pmc

Hockey News Pool Predictions

The Hockey News Ultimate Pool Guide is out and they have made the following predictions for Flames players :

Jarome Iginla 75GP 44G 54A 98Pts
Alex Tanguay 77 25 60 85
Daymond Langkow 82 30 40 70
Matthew Lombardi 78 25 39 64
Kristian Huselius 79 27 33 60
Craig Conroy 79 22 36 58
Dion Phaneuf 80 21 35 56
Owen Nolan 70 21 20 41
Adrien Aucoin 70 9 32 41
Dustin Boyd 73 18 18 36
Mark Giordiano 72 10 24 34
David Moss 76 14 19 33
Robyn Regehr 80 4 18 22
Wayne Primeau 75 10 10 20
Stephane Yelle 70 8 12 20
Anders Eriksson 72 1 18 19
Marcus Nilson 68 7 11 18
Cory Sarich 82 2 15 17

On the whole I find these numbers optimistic. That's 12 forwards and 6 defensemen scoring 298 goals. A big increase over last year's big increase. As this is not a full complement of players (eg no Rhett Warrener) and as it does not take into account the contributions of call-ups the Hockey News is basically predicting more than 300 goals for the Flames this year. Not that it wouldn't be nice to see. That includes 8 players who score more than 20 goals. Hello 1983.

I think they have overestimated Conroy, Aucoin, Boyd, Giordiano and maybe Moss. They may have underestimated Huselius but then again the Keenan factor could make him back into a 40-point scorer again.

Here are my predictions:

Iginla 77 46 51 97
Tanguay 78 26 58 84
Huselius 79 31 39 70
Langkow 80 22 43 65
Phaneuf 81 21 41 62
Lombardi 71 26 34 60
Conroy 80 14 28 42
Nolan 75 18 19 37
Aucoin 76 5 29 34
Taratukhin 78 12 21 33
Moss 67 11 17 28
Yelle 71 9 14 23
Eriksson 81 3 17 20
Regehr 80 4 14 18
Giordano 47 4 12 16
Boyd 24 6 9 15
Nilson 76 5 8 13
Primeau 64 4 6 10
Sarich 81 2 7 9
Warrener 50 1 5 6
Germyn 22 3 2 5
Hale 59 0 3 3

That's 272 goals over 22 players. My numbers probably suffer from some preseason optimism as well.

The Pool Guide was rife with errors and typos again. I understand the rush to be the first to publish with the ever increasing number of pool guide and pre-season magazines but it is disappointing to see The Hockey News be so sub-standard. But I digress more on that in my next post.

Your predictions on Flames players' point totals welcome

pmc

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