With a disappointing 1-3-1 road trip on the books, the Calgary Flames have had a day to return home, attempt to get their bearings and prepare for a matchup against the 3-2-0 New York Rangers tonight.
The schedule hasn’t been kind to this group. Tonight will be their sixth game in 12 days and they play again on Thursday before finally earning a two-day break prior to the Heritage Classic in Edmonton on October 29. Unfortunately, the current pace feels more like fixing your car as it’s driving.
A sequence of three or four days off might do well to give a few players a fresh reset on what has been an underwhelming start to the season. On that note, a few individuals have their opinions on what steps need to be taken to get the team back above .500.
"You have to play as a team in this league. Otherwise, it's going to going to be hard to win on a nightly basis." -Ryan Huska, Head Coach
"Last season was different. It was Darryl, now there’s no Darryl so there’s no excuses. You guys don’t like hard coaches, you don’t like soft coaches, you don’t like good coaches. It’s a new day league. You come up here and you play hard & leave everything on the ice.""There’s some things that we need to get working on, but I think the main thing for us is we have too many individuals playing by themselves. We have to figure out, do we want to play as a team or do we want to play as your own guy?"
We’re drawing closer to game time, and unfortunately, pulling the exact full quote from Kadri takes a hot minute. Full time job got in the way today. Apologies. When asked by the media he remained positive and pointed out that he could have easily had two or three goals in the last couple of games.
First of all, he didn’t. More importantly, it’s odd that when asked about if he could be playing as a better teammate, he jumps to how he could have scored more goals with better luck. Not that he could have played better, not that he could have set up his teammates. Frustrating.
Perhaps former Flames head coach Darryl Sutter was on to something when he demoted him to the bottom six last season as the games became more important.
Something to think about. Speaking of Kadri, no player was affected more by the team’s last meeting with the New York Rangers. The speedy forward took a big hit late in the game from defenceman Jacob Trouba. Dillon Dube jumped Trouba in response and, frankly, got his ass kicked.
From that point on, Kadri’s play began to spiral. The seven-million-dollar-a-season center mentioned that he sustained a shoulder injury in the early second half that he was playing through — The Flames and Rangers met on February 6, 2023, so it’s a safe bet that he was referring to that game.
2022-2023 Nazem Kadri Before & After Trouba Hit
Before — Oct 13-Feb 6 Games: 51 Goals: 19 Assists: 19 Points per Game: 0.75 +/-: -10
After — Feb 7-April 30 Games: 31 Goals: 5 Assists: 13 Points per Game: 0.58 +/-: -9
Interestingly enough, the Flames won’t be dressing their resident tough guy, AJ Greer. Dryden Hunt will be slotting in in his place. Hard to agree with Huska on that one.
Flames Projected Lineup Huberdeau-Lindholm-Sharangovich Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman Ruzicka-Kadri-Duehr Hunt-Dube-Coronato
Hanifin-Weegar Gilbert-Tanev Zadorov-Oesterle
Markstrom
Rangers Projected Lineup Courtesy of Vince Mercogliano. @vcmercogliano Kreider – Zibanejad - Kakko Panarin - Chytil - Laf Cuylle - Trocheck - Wheeler Goodrow - Bonino - Vesey
Lindgren - Fox Miller - Trouba Gustafsson - Schneider
Shesterkin Quick
Appeal Denied
The Flames and NHLPA’s appeal to shorten the length of Rasmus Andersson’s suspension was denied in a decision that came down to the discretion of League Commissioner Gary Bettman.
Understandable. The Commissioner has no need to go against the judgement of the Department of Player Safety.
Game time is 7:45 pm MST. Catch the broadcast on Sportsnet in Canada and ESPN in the States.
Trevor Neufeld
@Trevor_Neufeld
Stats via ESPN.