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Five observations from Calgary vs Vancouver:
1. A concerning trend continues. Another game, another sleepy start from the Calgary Flames. Their breakouts were awful, their puck management was poor, and they had absolutely no flow offensively. Could they use some personnel upgrades, particularly on the right side? Absolutely! But every team has holes. There is simply no excuse for the Flames to come out so groggy every night, especially when some of their struggles can’t even be pinned on personnel. Take their defense, for example. The Flames have Mark Giordano, Rasmus Andersson, Juuso Valimaki, and Noah Hanifin, among others. That’s a mobile group and there are plenty of plus passers in there. I feel like the Flames should be able to, you know, break out of the defensive zone cleanly with some sort of consistency. What we’re seeing on a nightly basis is beyond unacceptable.
2. The blender was excessive. I get changing lines when things aren’t working. But Geoff Ward took that to the extreme last night. Some players – such as Mikael Backlund – skated at least a couple shifts with seven or eight different forwards. It was absurd. Again, it’s one thing to mix things up in hopes of finding a spark. It is another to send out a player with different linemates every other shift. Some of the changes were absolute prayers, too. Joakim Nordstrom has shown us next to nothing this season. Yet, for some reason, Ward elected to put him with Matthew Tkachuk and Mikael Backlund for a few shifts. The latter duo is as potent as they come defensively, and I’m *pretty* sure Nordstrom isn’t the guy to unlock them offensively. It felt like there was no plan and the coaching staff was simply throwing stuff at the wall and hoping for it to stick.
3. Jacob Markstrom was off. Amazing how bad Calgary looks when he isn’t there to bail them out, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong; the Flames were bad in front of him. They couldn’t do anything with the puck and there were too many breakdowns without it. But Markstrom made some mistakes you don’t normally see from him, and it was a blowout loss as a result. Quite honestly, I think fatigue might’ve been a factor. Markstrom has played a ton of hockey this season; taxing hockey at that. Nobody in the league has faced more shots. The Flames have played poorly for large parts of essentially every game and the coaching staff has overworked Markstrom to try and compensate. I think last night was a byproduct of that. The one positive, if you will, is that the Flames pulled the plug on Markstrom and gave David Rittich some work. That allowed him to feel some pucks and shake off the rust in preparation of a start this weekend vs Edmonton. Personally, I’d give him the nod Friday and start Markstrom on Saturday; give him the extra day of rest. Clearly, it couldn’t hurt.
4. Brett Ritchie provided a spark. I thought he was one of Calgary’s better players. That’s absolutely not a good thing but nevertheless, credit where it is due. Ritchie got in on the forecheck and finished Canucks off. He battled hard, he won some extra possessions, he got to the net. All good things. Ritchie also generated a couple good looks around the net and ranked 2nd on the Flames in 5v5 attempts. I’m guessing we’ll see more of him this weekend; as we should. He earned another opportunity.
5. Mark Giordano and Juuso Valimaki put their best foot forward. That pairing has been hit and miss since assembled. I thought, for the most part, they were very good last night. The Flames spent a ton of time in the offensive zone with that pairing on the ice and they did a good job of activating at the right times to get involved offensively. Calgary out-attempted Vancouver 28-9 with Giordano and Valimaki out there at 5v5 so, naturally, they were out-scored 2-1 during that time. You sign up for a 75 CF% and 70 HDCF% every time out, though.
Numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com
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