Todd Cordell: G35 Calgary Flames @ Dallas Stars: Five things to watch

GO FLAMES!!!!

No Neal tonight???

Surgery to remove a piano from his ass.

Surgery to remove a piano from his ass.
- JimmyBeem

No Neal tonight???
- DuranDuran

Might be a little dental work to repair those insanely white chiclets

No Neal tonight???
- DuranDuran

Upper body injury... Perhaps the puck to the face last game or the proverbial piano tied to his ass as Jimmy mentioned. Teams are so secretive these days.

Glad to see Rittich get the start. Hopefully it’s all him for these last 3 games before Christmas.
Didn’t see much of Kerby last game, would be nice to see our leading scorer from Stockton get a chance to show what he’s got. Even Warren was a decent player.
Don’t want to look past this game but Thursday should be a barn burner. Tampa steamrolls the Canucks tonight then comes into the dome for a battle!

I’m afraid the officiating is only going to get worse.

The league brass sent a message to all officials league wide to reduce the amount of penalty calls as it was “greatly interrupting the flow of play” for most hockey games. This bit of news comes from Elliotte Friedman, so safe to say it’s true.

Reading between the lines, essentially most players around the league are cheating as much as they can get away with. I do share Sean’s opinion of calling absolutely everything to force players to eliminate the cheap stuff, and get it firmly planted in their mind, but you’d have to change the name of the game from Hockey to PowerPlay or something if you get the drift of it.

In the current model, if team X gets a PP, and team Y gets one right after, and neither team scores, team X gets away with a blatant trip on team Y if it’s right after team Y’s powerplay is done so as to not “interrupt the flow of gameplay”. Pretty bullshít if you ask me but you can see how it becomes a double edged sword.

What you end up with is close to 1/3rd of all games outcomes in the NHL being decided by hit and miss officiating, not nessesarily who was the better team that night, that’s epidemic levels right there. And the league knows it, they just don’t know what to do about it. Ask pretty please players, don’t cheat?!,cause that’ll never happen. Tell the officials to call absolutely everything to try to get the message across to the players?! You’d end up with maybe 5 minutes of true 5on5 during a game.

To be frank, I don’t honestly know what the solution is either. If it was me, I’d go the calling absolutely everything route in all the preseason games and maybe a little bit into October to start the next year and see what happens. In the meantime, your going to see a lot of non calls against McDavid, Gaudreau and star company like that to continue.

Bottom line. It’s the players faults that it works the current way it does. It starts with them. They have to stop trying to cheat every little time they think they can get away with it. But it’s a part of the fabric of the game, human nature even. Until the players straiten themselves out, nothing is going to change for the positive.

Sorry this was so long, but this is the short version actually..

(This is a carry over of a discussion on the Oilers thread, I was just curious as to your positions on current officiating as well)

Surgery to remove a piano from his ass.
- JimmyBeem

Butt they said it was an upper body injury..

Upper body injury... Perhaps the puck to the face last game or the proverbial piano tied to his ass as Jimmy mentioned. Teams are so secretive these days.
- geta02it

Oh yeah, I forgot about the puck he took to his face. His wife probably said no sex until your teeth are perfect again so he’s out of the game because of dental “surgery” i.e. repair a small chip and full whitening package..

Glad to see Rittich get the start. Hopefully it’s all him for these last 3 games before Christmas.
Didn’t see much of Kerby last game, would be nice to see our leading scorer from Stockton get a chance to show what he’s got. Even Warren was a decent player.
Don’t want to look past this game but Thursday should be a barn burner. Tampa steamrolls the Canucks tonight then comes into the dome for a battle!
- K-man25

I hope they don’t play Smitty vs. Tampa, that’s what I’m worried about..

I think the Oilers should stop whining. Just because they have McDavid doesn't mean they should be an elite team. Elite teams have depth....mediocre teams have excused. The officiating seems even across the board and we just need to do what we always do and curse at the TV.

I think the Oilers should stop whining. Just because they have McDavid doesn't mean they should be an elite team. Elite teams have depth....mediocre teams have excused. The officiating seems even across the board and we just need to do what we always do and curse at the TV.
- FlamesNOTLames

Hitchcock pulling a Gretzky/Burke. Calling out the refs obviously trying to get the benefit of some calls and opening up the ice of McJesus. It'll probably work too. He probably negotiated a bit extra on his contract to offset a fine here and there.

Fuk this, time to put on the skates😎

Should have been penalties for both

We suck at 3rd periods 🙉🙈🙊...

Can’t get the game ...are they playing as badly as the shot clock shows ?

Can’t get the game ...are they playing as badly as the shot clock shows ?
- Redmile247

Yes. Just brutal

Can’t get the game ...are they playing as badly as the shot clock shows ?
- Redmile247

Uninspired! But stil not out of it by any means, next goal so important.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Maybe a case of the 3rd game in 4 nights on the road thing but otherwise looking slow out there and Dallas doing a good job of not giving us much space.

Surgery to remove a piano from his ass.
- JimmyBeem

And jimmybeem comes out of nowhere!!

Troy Brouwer with his 7th tonight

How many does Neal have lol .....

Owell come out hard for Tampa.