Follow Colin on Twitter! Follow @ColinDJD Good day sports fans!
Hopefully everyone enjoyed their thanksgiving (for the Canadians) and had a nice relaxing long weekend to sit back, watch hockey, and share a few (laughs/beers/stories) with the family. Personally I can say that I’m somehow more tired and sick than before the long weekend, but this likely has to do with not sleeping a whole lot, trying to visit too many people and do too many things! That being said, it’s now Tuesday-Monday, and we’ve all get to get back into the grind.
The Calgary Flames will take on the Nashville Predators tonight at 600pm who are on a two game winning streak and looking to extend that to three. While the Predators start to the season has been great so far, it has been their final 20 minutes of play which has rewarded the group this year.
"Over the course of the season, needing comebacks isn't something you want to have to do too much of," said Gaustad, who has recorded all four of his points in the third period.
"But the first couple home games to get wins like this - it shows the character we have already. We'll take the positives from it."
The Calgary Flames have not fared so well in their recent games, sitting at 1-2-0 with a 4-1 loss against the Blues on Saturday night. Many have felt that the Flames are being outworked and out chanced, however what I have witnessed is a group committed to their system and work ethic, but have been falling short of producing. Without the veteran presence of Mike Cammalleri to put away a few goals, the Flames must rely on rookies like Johnny Gaudreau who is still without a point this NHL season.
But no reason to panic. The season is still quite young, heck the team is still considered rather “young… and or inexperienced, for the most part, and a slow start shouldn’t be to anyone’s surprise. What I have liked so far has been the play of the vets. Guys like Giordano and even TJ Brodie have been playing very well together, Curtis Glencross has displayed some solid hockey and Jiri Hudler appears to have not fallen off since his successful 2013-14 NHL season.
The area which the Flames will need to focus on is their specialty teams. With new players in the roster and being a new season altogether, getting that “mojo… back, if you will, can take time.
"Right now, we're just not good enough on our PK," Hartley said. "It's a total team effort."
Below are your expected lines against the Preds, and I expect a better effort from the team in terms of their specialty teams productivity over the next handful of games.
Hudler – Monahan – Setoguchi Glencross – Backlund – Byron Raymond – Colborne – Gaudreau Bollig – Stajan – Bouma Giordano – Brodie Russell – Engelland Smid – Wideman
Ramo
That’s all for today folks, thanks for reading!