It started badly, and then it ended badly, but there was a whole lot of action in between...
Both teams had A LOT of chances. Both teams skated, hit, and all out competed hard. Iginla and Mitchell had one of the best fights of this young season. A few others weren't to shy to drop the gloves either. The emotion was there. The intensity is there. The execution is still lacking.
To be completely frank, if you look at the game objectively, if the Canucks are as sharp with their scoring chances as they were on Thursday and Luongo is as frugal... Let's just say the game could have been a lot worse.
Like Thursday, there were positives. The Flames PK looks as good as it has in years! The problem is, for every positive there's a glaring negative: A zero percent power-play success rate won't win a team a whole lot of games. It's not like they haven't had chances; A combined 0-13 in their first two games is a little cause for concern. But that isn't the glaring issue! The Flames simply give up way too many quality scoring chances... Period. Too many giveaways, too many situations where they are just a little bit late, too many times where a small error turns into a glaring one because of the subsequent play. It's been said that Kipper looks a little shaky, but one could argue that a lot of his current nerves are a direct result of the way the Flames have been sloppy at times in their own zone to start the season. Of course, just to play devil's advocate, when do the powers that be decide that maybe it's time to see if Curtis McElhiney between the pipes might force the team to tighten up? Who knows? Maybe the sloppy play can be attributed to a slight overconfidence on the team's part that Kiprusoff has historically been able to bail his team out. Well... If you're scoring at home, he hasn't bailed them out yet this year, but they haven't made it very easy on him either.
A little commentary on the Bertuzzi boarding call at the end of the third:
1. It was a penalty.
2. It was a dive.
3. It was called because it was Todd Bertuzzi, but it should ALWAYS be called.
Yes, I did just say that Johnson dove, and the likely conclusion would be that I shouldn't think that it's a penalty, but the truth is: Hits from behind are dangerous and shouldn't be tolerated. Now, Johnson made sure that he got hit from behind and then jumped into the boards to make it look a lot worse than it was, but it was still a hit from behind and that's all that should matter. Odd though, how the refs seemed to pocket the whistles for the last five minutes and the OT aside from that hit. It's also probably true that without instant replay, that hit isn't such an obvious dive.
All and all it adds up to another slow start to the season for the Flames, and in this division a slow start can mean an early end to the season. Next up are the Avs on Tuesday in Calgary.
Have a great day!
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