Kiprusoff

Currently in first for the Western Conference is the Detroit Red Wings, who, much like the Calgary Flames, are going into this game with a loss before the start of the All Star Break.  While the pregame show might put a damper on the spirit for a moment, there is no denying the battle will mostly come down to the battle between the pipes.

I know the day is almost over, but a happiest of birthdays to the best goalie: Let’s see him get a win tonight against the Avalanche, what an amazing birthday gift two points would be! Go Flames Go!

It’s now been almost a year since I started writing for the Flame for Thought blog, and this, regrettably, will be my final entry. Seems an appropriate time to discuss how little has changed with the Flames the past 12 months. Oh, sure, the GM was (mercifully) gassed, some new names have moved to town and some old ones have moved on. And, sure, the team is on a nice roll, turning a miserable season into an exciting playoff race. But really, are they any better than they were this time last year? When I, along with a few friends, [...]

Two things stand out from the Flames’ 7-4 win over Dallas last night. One, that it was a hell of a quick turnaround from the 6-0 ass-kicking the Flames took in the same rink 48 hours earlier. And two, that it was done in front of a goalie who wasn’t the $6-million all-star the Flames usually rely on to turn things around for them. Henrik Karlsson was hardly much better than Miikka Kiprusoff had been a couple of nights before – four goals in 21 shots is far from brilliant goaltending, and he looked very ordinary on all four of [...]

Miikka Kiprusoff’s great-year-wasted just got a little worse. After spending six months being let down by his under-achieving teammates, now Kipper finds out their indifferent play in front of him not only cost him a trip to the playoffs, but a Vezina nomination, too.  The NHL announced its three finalists for the Vezina Trophy yesterday – and Kipper wasn’t among them. The voters cast their nods in the direction of Martin Brodeur, Ryan Miller and Ilya Bryzgalov. We won’t know until after the NHL hands out its awards in June just where Miikka ranked in the voting, but given the Vezina-worthy [...]

OK, finally coming out of my mourning period. I think we can now talk openly about the untimely death of the Calgary Flames. This week, the Flames have died the way they lived. Without nearly enough scoring. Unable to win at home. Showing only enough energy, determination and skill to stay close, not enough to win. With little sense of character or focus. With a goalie doing everything he could to bail out his team, putting in a Vezina-worthy season, but with most of the rest of the team playing well below their potential. With the captain and superstar utterly [...]

Gotta thank Dave Thomas (aka SundevilD) for not only slipping a Ringo reference into his last post, but also reminding me of a time when we loved the Flames so completely and utterly that we would commit a break-and-enter at the old Stampede Corral and then hide out in its various dark corners for three or four hours just so we could see them in the playoffs. (For the record, it was Game 6, quarter-finals, vs. the Flyers, 1981. The game was electric, Flames lost in a thriller, then dumped the Flyers back at the old Spectrum in Game 7.) [...]

Wow… how bad are the Flames this December? Just terrible, after coming out of November looking like one of the teams to beat, they have proven to me, and fellow Calgarians that this is probably another early playoff exit team. In December they have won 3 games and lost 6. They need a Christmas break like Gary Bettman needs a heart attack. They have looked very uninterested in winning since December began. In November their problem was that they would play hard for all but 5-10 mins of the game, and in that time they would give up a few [...]