Bill Peters ruined Rittich's confidence and ended his long run of good play by pulling him from a game, very early on, after one time going out (rightfully) to play the puck and (unfortunately) putting the clearing attempt into the middle/ Joe Thornton rather than up the boards.

Smith does that EVERY game (90% good plays, Burkie? Shake your head), and he stays in the game.

Unforgivable. Smith killed all the momentum, and then again after the late goal by the Flames.

Rittich and Gillies for the playoffs, and I don't care if it does cost them an early playoff exit. I've had enough of Smith's BS play.
- MABster

Ok, it was nessesary for me to cuff you in the head for that second last sentence.

That was a great comment about Iginla. Good on you! .....and too bad the "Commissioner" failed to write anything either.

Flamin_Irishmin: Poor showing from Cordell proves costly.

5 keys to the blog:

1: There was no blog on game day. I don’t know what coach Eklund is thinking when he consistently allows one of his main bloggers to no show on game days. A job is a job, and a work day is a work day. To just show up on days you feel like it shows complete disrespect to the fan base. It’s completely classless.

2: No showing and skipping work on a Hockey Night in Canada day is inexcusable. Would an NFL blogger skip out on his teams Monday Night Football game?! I think not. And this is getting to be a habit. A bad habit. HNIC nights are when the family gathers around the TV to watch their favourite teams play showcased games with their favourite TV personalities, and use social media sites like Hockeybuzz to talk to far away fellow fans and friends about the game. Having to go back to the previous game days blog on big game night is so low class it’s not even funny.

3: If the biggest star in franchise history was having a huge ceremony to have his number retired in the rafters amongst all his friends and family, with 19,000 + fans all wearing the Iginla t-shirts left on all the seats, or their Iginla jerseys, you couldn’t think of a better time to write up a well written and thought out blog for the fan base, and for your career as a writer. And yet, what we got, was nothing.

4: Jarome Iginla isn’t just the best hockey player to ever play for the Calgary Flames, he is ingrained in the community. He is a friend, he is family, a hero to the many kids of all the charitable organizations he volunteered for. He was an inspiration to other ethnic cultures to get involved with hockey. To not even try to put out a blog on this most special of days is shameful.

5: The proof is in the pudding. If it wasn’t clear before, it is now. We are just some lowly form of revenue to Todd Cordell. Nothing more. Cookie cutter blogs, a heat map here, a retweet there, and that’s it. No thought or emotion involved. If it wasn’t for money, Todd couldn’t care less about the Calgary Flames, or their fan base.

Thanks for no showing on one of the biggest days in Calgary Flames franchise history Todd. How very classy of you.
- Flamin_Irishmin

You forgot Prout, Flamin’

Flamin_Irishmin: Poor showing from Cordell proves costly.

5 keys to the blog:

1: There was no blog on game day. I don’t know what coach Eklund is thinking when he consistently allows one of his main bloggers to no show on game days. A job is a job, and a work day is a work day. To just show up on days you feel like it shows complete disrespect to the fan base. It’s completely classless.

2: No showing and skipping work on a Hockey Night in Canada day is inexcusable. Would an NFL blogger skip out on his teams Monday Night Football game?! I think not. And this is getting to be a habit. A bad habit. HNIC nights are when the family gathers around the TV to watch their favourite teams play showcased games with their favourite TV personalities, and use social media sites like Hockeybuzz to talk to far away fellow fans and friends about the game. Having to go back to the previous game days blog on big game night is so low class it’s not even funny.

3: If the biggest star in franchise history was having a huge ceremony to have his number retired in the rafters amongst all his friends and family, with 19,000 + fans all wearing the Iginla t-shirts left on all the seats, or their Iginla jerseys, you couldn’t think of a better time to write up a well written and thought out blog for the fan base, and for your career as a writer. And yet, what we got, was nothing.

4: Jarome Iginla isn’t just the best hockey player to ever play for the Calgary Flames, he is ingrained in the community. He is a friend, he is family, a hero to the many kids of all the charitable organizations he volunteered for. He was an inspiration to other ethnic cultures to get involved with hockey. To not even try to put out a blog on this most special of days is shameful.

5: The proof is in the pudding. If it wasn’t clear before, it is now. We are just some lowly form of revenue to Todd Cordell. Nothing more. Cookie cutter blogs, a heat map here, a retweet there, and that’s it. No thought or emotion involved. If it wasn’t for money, Todd couldn’t care less about the Calgary Flames, or their fan base.

Thanks for no showing on one of the biggest days in Calgary Flames franchise history Todd. How very classy of you.
- Flamin_Irishmin

You forgot Prout, Flamin’
- TandA4Flames

Oh yeah. Thanks T@A.

- Ol_Boy_Wop

Didn’t mean to scare you there Ol Boy!

In all fairness I do like Todd, but talk about dropping the ball and not even trying to pick it up. It’s getting tiresome I guess..😕

I know he’s a Devils guy. But man alive, it was Jarome Iginla’s banner raising for Christ sakes, that’s all I’m saying..

On a side note, I was at the Victoria Royals last home game last night (caught the ceremony and game on my IPhone) and usually I am one of the only ones out of 6000 people or so to wear a Flames jersey. (I ALWAYS represent lol). But there must have been a good 25 Iginla jerseys in the crowd, even some kids. We all greeted each other in passing in the food concourse, talking about our best Iggy memories. Man that was cool. A lot more so because we were 25 out of 6000, most of them wearing the blue and white of the Victoria Royals. Had all kinds of Albertans come and talk with me as well, even some stinky Oilers fans (not wearing their colours of course). Even they had nothing but good things to say about Iggy. All in all, it was a great night.

Also, because it was their last home game, instead of their last names on the back of the jerseys, it was their nicknames. I was actually very cool. Started calling the players by their nicknames as we were talking about some of the plays being made. It would be kinda neat for the NHL teams to do that for one game a year and auction off the jerseys for charity!

Yeah I listened to Burkie’s talk on that as well. And for the most part, I agree.

But this is the second time in three games where he comes out of the net and stick battles the opposing defender against the boards with a goalie paddle. Now THAT’s just ridiculous. Even Kelly Hrudey was like wtf is Mike Smith doing?! Get back in your net where you belong and let’s the D handle the board battles. I would hope he feels more than a little silly after watching the replays of those gaffs. And hopefully something sinks in.
- Flamin_Irishmin

No Mea Culpa here, I'm afraid. Smith uses 3 different personal pronouns in "explaining" what went wrong. As you can see, "I/me" was not one of them....


“Just a mistake behind the net with the puck,” Smith said. “We battled to get back in it, but you can’t make mistakes like that in close games and tonight it bit us ...... .”


https://globalnews.ca/new...iginla-jersey-retirement/

If only we could laugh about it...........

Didn’t mean to scare you there Ol Boy!

In all fairness I do like Todd, but talk about dropping the ball and not even trying to pick it up. It’s getting tiresome I guess..😕

I know he’s a Devils guy. But man alive, it was Jarome Iginla’s banner raising for Christ sakes, that’s all I’m saying..
- Flamin_Irishmin

No, you're good, man. I'm with you 100% and I commented about it on the other thread. Not having a story about the best player in franchise history getting his number retired is a real missed opportunity to connect with the readers.

Most people seem unable to grasp how many benefits there are to Smith playing the puck as much as he does. It completely changes how teams can play against the Flames. It makes it that much harder to get in and set up in the offensive zone when you take away the option for a dump in. When you see the Flames dominate teams and give up like 4 or 5 shots in a period, a lot of that comes from the fact that Smith is taking away the dump in. They have to gain the zone the hard way.

There's also the obvious point that every time Smith plays the puck, he's saving his defenceman from having to battle in a corner.

Smith is the best in the league at it, and they definitely shouldn't be trying to limit his puck handling. Yeah, it'll lead to the occasional bad goal, and last night was probably the worst example, but the benefits massively outweigh the bad goal here and there. Gaudreau is 4th in the league in giveaways, but no one is suggesting that he cuts back on his puckhandling since we know what he's capable of doing with it.

I wouldn't be surprised if Smith didn't actually let in more goals from leaving the net than the average goalie. It's just highlighted every time he does it since it's his thing. There's a goal going in from a wandering goalie almost nightly.

Most people seem unable to grasp how many benefits there are to Smith playing the puck as much as he does. It completely changes how teams can play against the Flames. It makes it that much harder to get in and set up in the offensive zone when you take away the option for a dump in. When you see the Flames dominate teams and give up like 4 or 5 shots in a period, a lot of that comes from the fact that Smith is taking away the dump in. They have to gain the zone the hard way.

There's also the obvious point that every time Smith plays the puck, he's saving his defenceman from having to battle in a corner.

Smith is the best in the league at it, and they definitely shouldn't be trying to limit his puck handling. Yeah, it'll lead to the occasional bad goal, and last night was probably the worst example, but the benefits massively outweigh the bad goal here and there. Gaudreau is 4th in the league in giveaways, but no one is suggesting that he cuts back on his puckhandling since we know what he's capable of doing with it.

I wouldn't be surprised if Smith didn't actually let in more goals from leaving the net than the average goalie. It's just highlighted every time he does it since it's his thing. There's a goal going in from a wandering goalie almost nightly.
- Hunkulese

I personally very much understand what your saying.

And mostly agree. (Excuse me for a second.. 🤮)

Agreeing with you makes me gag, sry.

My beef is in 2 of the last 3 games, he’s come out to stick check with the opposing defence man, first time broke his stick, and last night he’s trying to win a board battle with a goalie paddle. With his defenceman (Hanifin?) right there to take over. Little to much hubris on Smiths part on those plays for any bodies liking. He didn’t even head check his net. Had his back to it the whole time. That’s what blew my mind. And Kelly’s too.

Didn’t mean to scare you there Ol Boy!

In all fairness I do like Todd, but talk about dropping the ball and not even trying to pick it up. It’s getting tiresome I guess..😕

I know he’s a Devils guy. But man alive, it was Jarome Iginla’s banner raising for Christ sakes, that’s all I’m saying..
- Flamin_Irishmin

Pretty sure he's a Leafs fan.

Most people seem unable to grasp how many benefits there are to Smith playing the puck as much as he does. It completely changes how teams can play against the Flames. It makes it that much harder to get in and set up in the offensive zone when you take away the option for a dump in. When you see the Flames dominate teams and give up like 4 or 5 shots in a period, a lot of that comes from the fact that Smith is taking away the dump in. They have to gain the zone the hard way.

There's also the obvious point that every time Smith plays the puck, he's saving his defenceman from having to battle in a corner.

Smith is the best in the league at it, and they definitely shouldn't be trying to limit his puck handling. Yeah, it'll lead to the occasional bad goal, and last night was probably the worst example, but the benefits massively outweigh the bad goal here and there. Gaudreau is 4th in the league in giveaways, but no one is suggesting that he cuts back on his puckhandling since we know what he's capable of doing with it.

I wouldn't be surprised if Smith didn't actually let in more goals from leaving the net than the average goalie. It's just highlighted every time he does it since it's his thing. There's a goal going in from a wandering goalie almost nightly.
- Hunkulese

I think most here recognize the value, but also hold him accountable when he makes such a glaring mistake in judgement too - he needs to work on his decision making and he has been getting caught a lot as of late - hasn't been burned on each one, but he's had to scramble several times in recent games. Teams are using a softer dump and chase to force him out and give their forecheckers time to descend on him. For those soft dumpins, he needs to stay in his cage or make real quick work of the puck

I think most here recognize the value, but also hold him accountable when he makes such a glaring mistake in judgement too - he needs to work on his decision making and he has been getting caught a lot as of late - hasn't been burned on each one, but he's had to scramble several times in recent games. Teams are using a softer dump and chase to force him out and give their forecheckers time to descend on him. For those soft dumpins, he needs to stay in his cage or make real quick work of the puck
- rmull905

If he's going to continue to be the Flames goalie, he definitely needs to pick his spots better. Minny's 2nd goal on Saturday was the 2nd time in the game that Smith went behind the net to play the puck and the puck ended up in front with him still behind the net. Fortunately, nobody was there the first time. Maybe there's reason other goalies don't play the puck as often as Smith does.

A great obit for one of the greatest players.

https://torontosun.com/sp...ar-and-nhlpa-founder-dead

If he's going to continue to be the Flames goalie, he definitely needs to pick his spots better. Minny's 2nd goal on Saturday was the 2nd time in the game that Smith went behind the net to play the puck and the puck ended up in front with him still behind the net. Fortunately, nobody was there the first time. Maybe there's reason other goalies don't play the puck as often as Smith does.
- tincup

He also nearly got burned twice more as the game went on, and both times were just decision based issues as well. He got really lucky, and I think Minny was in his head.

The last goal he gave up was not pretty either, and I, for one, am keeping my eyes open to see how his confidence is impacted short term