Follow Colin on Twitter! Follow @ColinDJD The Calgary Flames will take to the ice tonight against Pekke Rinne and the Nashville Predators.
To start things off, I’m hoping for a very low scoring game from both teams for two reasons; firstly because I write for the Flames and I wish them the best of luck every game, but secondly because I have Pekke Rinne as my starter in my fantasy pool and I’m currently in first out of 20 fantasy owners.
On a more serious note, the Flames are struggling of late in terms of their depth as it seems that player after player is going down with an injury of some sort. Matt Stajan has been confirmed that he will miss about six weeks of play with a knee injury and Joe Colborne will be out for a few days with an upper body injury. To add to these three players, Mason Raymond is still sitting on IR with a shoulder injury and is listed as week to week.
And with all these injuries and a slightly depleted lineup, Flames head coach is still confident in his group and will demand nothing but a strong performance just the same.
"You can't call a timeout in the NHL season when you have injuries," Hartley said. "We have some options out there. We have 20 guys and I feel awful for (Stajan) and for (Colborne) and Mason Raymond a few days ago, but every team goes through this. There's no sense creating excuses or anything."
You’ve got to admire the coaching staff behind this Flames group. They say the right things, seemingly understand how to work with the depth which they are challenged with, and have earned the respect and compete level of all their players. Kudos to you, Hartley.
I've written a few blogs by now with my thoughts on Hartley and how he's created a positive, competitive environment in Calgary despite being amongst a rebuild. It is something that can be quite challenging to do, in fact. When you have professionals who want to do nothing but win, and with the media and analytics out there telling them that their best chance is a bottom 5 spot in the standings, it tends to deplete players and take the wind out of their sails, if you will.
I hate to do this again, I really do...or maybe I don't, but take a look at the Oilers. Their organization made it publicly known that they will, without a doubt suck. They knew it, their fans knew it, their players knew it, and they all seemingly accepted it. As such, it appears that such a mentality may have lingered longer than originally assumed. It has been a few years now that analysts felt that the team would turn things around. That their players now a few years into the mix could take their game to the next level and rip it up in the NHL.
So why then do they continue to "struggle". Was it because of this early acceptance of "we will suck"? I cant say for sure but I've said it for years that no team should ever accept a loss, regardless of their position in the standings, regardless of their depth in the lineup. At the end of the day a team grows together and strengthens through adversity and by finding ways to battle and get wins in games which you had no business competing in, you set yourself up for future successes.
This, I maintain, is the exact mentality which is held and understood by Hartley and his coaching staff. Now back to the game tonight.
The two players who have been playing the strongest of late have been Johnny Gaudreau and Jonas Hiller. With a strong performance against the Montreal Canadiens, and currently 3-0-1 with a 0.72 SV% over his last four games, Hiller will get the nod again tonight. How good are those numbers though…really?
"I want to keep playing the way I am or even get better," Hiller said. "It might go the other way pretty quick. I've got to take the games I get and don't look too far ahead."
The Flames will need to keep an eye out for Forsberg and Ribeiro tonight who have been playing some good hockey for the Preds. With an alright defense and a very strong netminder, having some spark in their offense could be enough to walk away with a big win against the Flames. Unless of course the Flames counter with strong goaltending and defense of their own!
Tonight should be close in all honestly. Both teams have been playing well, they will likely both have strong performances between the pipes frustrating each respective offense, and they actually play a similar style. Prediction: 3-1 Preds.
Thanks for reading!