Flames 3 - Wild 6

Game was on TSN tonight.

My rating of the game,

Offense: 3/5
Defense: 4/5
Goaltending: 3/5
Powerplay: 1/5
Penalty Kill: 2/5
Discipline: 5/5
Effort: 2/5
Overall: 2/5

Alright, I had my eyes glued to the TV for this.

The Flames started off slow.... really slow. The Flames got outworked in the first period and I rarely said that the season before. The Flames is about outworking the other team for 60 minutes but not tonight. They picked it up in the third period after the huge hit by Warrener that knocked Zyuzin out of the game. I gave them 2/5 on effort mostly because you have to play hard for 60 minutes.

Our offense was alright offensively but defensively... they did not backcheck aggresively enough in the first period, hence the goals by the Wild and hence the 3/5 rating.

Our defense was solid, Phanuef looked great out there. Hamrlik looked a little out of control there both offensively and defensively but hung in there. I didn't think we would miss the presence of Regr that much but I wish we had him in the lineup. Defense was solid, 4/5.

Oh Kipper, he looked... ordinary. 3/5 is ordinary.... but we need him to be more then ordinary for the Flames to do well. I wish we still had Turek as our backup, I think he's head and shoulders above Sauve and Krahn.

Powerplay... 1/8, it looked good on about 2 of those powerplays and not the one we scored on. It needs improvement fast... really fast. I thought Calgary should have called a timeout early in the 3rd period when they had that 4 on 3 but they didn't and they didn't score. 1/5 just because we scored 1 goal on it.

Penalty Kill... 1/3, 33% on the penalty kill is no good. I think we need to be more aggresive in our box but I can't pinpoint what's wrong with our penalty kill. So a 2/5 rating.

Disicipline: 8 to 3 in powerplays for Calgary. Enough said.

I'm too tired to stay up for the Edmonton/Colorado game, but I did pick Edmonton to win this game.

Next game

Flames at the Blue Jackets

Prediction: Calgary to Win but won't beat the 1 1/2 spread @ the Blue Jackets home opener.

Opening Night Record

Buf/NYI: Picked Buffalo - 1/1
Mon/Bos: Picked Boston - 1/2
NYR/Phi: Picked Philly - 1/3
Clb/Was: Picked Columbus - 1/4
Atl/Fla: Picked Atlanta - 1/5
Det/Stl: Picked Detriot - 2/6
Pit/NJ: Picked New Jersey - 3/7
TB/Car: Picked Tamba Bay - 4/8
Ott/Tor: Picked Ottawa - 5/9
SJ/Nash: Picked San Jose - 5/10
Ana/Chi: Picked Anaheim - 6/11
Dal/LA: Picked LA - 6/12
Cgy/Min: Picked Calgary - 6/13
Edm/Col: Picked Edmonton - ???
Van/Phx: Picked Vancouver - ???