Calgary Flames Daily: Game day, desperately needing a win
By Ramina Shlah
The Calgary Flames go back in action tonight vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning. They desperately need a win after losing five in a row.
I’m so tired of the Calgary Flames losing. And losing leads as well. The game on Tuesday night seemed like was going to end on a positive note. But everything went downhill after 58 minutes and everything went crumbled in a span of 10 seconds.
The Flames are hoping to put the past behind them and vow to raise the stakes moving forwards.
Via Calgary Flames:
"“I’m not worried about [Tuesday], that’s for sure,” said Matthew Tkachuk after his team’s practice on Wednesday morning. “I don’t think anybody else is. It’s a long season, it’s one game. When you look at it, maybe we deserved to win that one and I’m sure there’s some games this year that we deserved to lose that we won.“It’s obviously not what we wanted but we’re moving on.”"
Related Story: Flames give up two late goals, lose to Vegas
Head coach Glen Gulutzan has said that, if you look at their biggest concern and reason for losses, is their powerplay. The Flames powerplay has been costing them games since they’ve had so many one-goal games lately. And it’s frustrating.
Via Calgary Sun:
"“The biggest concern, if you want to narrow it down, is the power play,” said Gulutzan of his 24th-ranked outfit, now 1-for-19 in their last handful of outings.“The power play has had the opportunity to throw a knockout punch, and we haven’t been able to do it. I think once we get to that point where the power play starts to click and jam — and they are cyclical in this league — it’s going to help us win. It’s kind of taken us out a bit. Our game has been intact enough to win every one of these games.”"
Yesterday in practice, the Flames were trying different powerplay lines. With Troy Brouwer on the first PP unit… because that’s worked so well in the past. The Flames are also going with the same lineup tonight as they did in the game on Tuesday evening.
To be fair, the Flames played a decent game. They had a great first period, the second period, they somewhat fell, but the second half of the third period wasn’t so bad. Just a costly mistake at the end and they fell apart.
For the powerplay, I’d like to see Dougie Hamilton on the first PP unit. We’ve seen that he has a good shot and he’s a right-handed shot; something the Flames are lacking, especially on the powerplay, since Kris Versteeg’s been injured.
Let’s hope for a win tonight.
Hockey Tweet of the day
Some links surrounding the Flames
Flames vow to ante up after bad Vegas run (Calgary Sun).
GameDay: Lightning at Flames (Calgary Sun).
Next up (Calgary Flames).
Some links surrounding hockey and the NHL
What Mike Fisher’s return means for the Nashville Predators (FanSided).
Today’s NHL almost unrecognizable to the one Bettman inherited (Sportsnet).
3 things we learned in the NHL: Nolan Patrick makes promotion count (Sportsnet).
NHL continues to debate merits of specifying player injuries (CBC Sports).
Next: Highlights of Jaromir Jagr as a Flame
That’s all in today’s Flames Daily!