GDT: "Battle" of Alberta: Flames vs Oilers - 8 PM MT

[Flameshomer]

Haven't read the thread yet- got to go to the game with my oilers fan brother in law.

Still unhappy about brodie and gulutzan.

 

[Flameshomer]

Smith let in two muffins by my count, the rest would have gone in on anyone. Still no excuse for the loss as we were playing an ahl goalie

 

[Flameshomer]

No excuses for that loss. Simply did not show up for two periods. When they did show up it was clear which is the better team. But the fact that they didn't show up for two periods means one thing and one thing only: Gulutzan needs to Go.

BTW, the real Sam Bennett is back. Time to get him back into his natural position and put him between Ferland and Gaudreau, and have him or Jankowski replace Brouwer on PP1 (common sense). I'd much rather watch Ferland-Bennett-Gaudreau blaze up the ice with speed than this awkward Gaudreau-Monahan-Jagr line. The Gaudreau-Monahan pairing is so overrated.

Lol

Bennett played great, again. But he's playing great because he doesn't have to worry about centre duties.
Money will be fine just leave them be. If you're so confident about Sam, let him drive his own line for a while, not just two games.

 

[Flameshomer]

If we can get anything of significance for brodie we absolutely should. The guy is a nightmare in his own zone and his ability to distribute the pick is highly overrated

Edit: pick should be puck but I almost think the autocorrect works. He distributes the high pick to us too often

 

[InfinityIggy]

The low angle on the first goal showed him looking away into the slot while the puck hit the boards. He wasn't set for what should have been an easy save. Bugged me.

I noticed that as well, you could clearly see him lose sight of it. However, the Oiler forward shouldn't get easy positioning there in front of the net for the 'rebound'. So to me more of the blame is on the D on that play.

 

[OvermanKingGainer]

Lol

Bennett played great, again. But he's playing great because he doesn't have to worry about centre duties.
Money will be fine just leave them be. If you're so confident about Sam, let him drive his own line for a while, not just two games.

No, he's playing great because Jankowski and Jagr are linemates who belong in an NHL top 6/top 9, rather than Brouwer who doesn't belong in the NHL outside of being a 14th forward, Lazar who belongs in the AHL, Versteeg who was playing on a broken hip all season as it turns out. Further to that, we managed to replace Bartkowski, an ECHL defenseman, with Kulak, an NHL top 4 defenseman since the time when Bennett was struggling down the middle. It's so obvious what has actually changed.

Bennett's linemates sucked before Jankowski and Jagr joined his line. No skirting around it. He wasn't doing poorly on his own assignments. And while he has some chemistry with Jankowski / Jagr, those two don't play at the same high tempo game he does, which still leads to him being too far ahead in the play too often and needed to slow down and throw away any advantage his speed might offer. Gaudreau and Ferland are the two guys who should be playing with Sam Bennett. Monahan would also do wonders with Jankowski centering him and Jagr on the opposite wing.

And don't forget all the chances that were botched when he was playing center, whether by is linemates or his own snakebitten shooting.

I have zero doubt Sam Bennett is still the best choice to center Gaudreau and Ferland if we want to contend. Monahan just can't play to that elite game-dominating level as an individual that Bennett can. The Bennett you saw tonight, is the kind of guy who can help that first line go toe-to-toe with a guy like McDavid. The Monahan you saw tonight, if you saw a Monahan tonight, is a finisher who would be better off with Jagr and Jankowski setting him up in the slot than playing 200 feet. I mean Monahan's "backcheck" on Mark "slow" Letestu was simply unacceptable but no one except me will ever admit that Bennett would have erased that same chance single-handedly.

 

[Unlimited Chequing]

Just watching After Hours now and I noticed Cammy leaving the Flames training room behind Smith. Guess he was saying hi to the training staff.

 

[crazyfisherman]

As a team we are too fragile, bring back the Hartley mentality of battling through when bounces dont go your way, now we get too low as soon as anything bad happens

 

[Anglesmith]

As a team we are too fragile, bring back the Hartley mentality of battling through when bounces dont go your way, now we get too low as soon as anything bad happens

We were literally a failed 2-on-1 away from erasing a 5-goal third period deficit tonight!

But in a way, I agree. This team allows the piling on to happen too much. But I think that started in Hartley's last year, not when Gulutzan came on board.

 

[crazyfisherman]

We were literally a failed 2-on-1 away from erasing a 5-goal third period deficit tonight!

But in a way, I agree. This team allows the piling on to happen too much. But I think that started in Hartley's last year, not when Gulutzan came on board.

The comeback is not indicative of hiw fragile this tean can be, when things start to go right, we can pile on no problem. The issue is when the bad thing happen. How many times have we seen this team play good, gets scored on then all hell breaks lose. This is the same vibe i got from thw ottawa game. We were the better team, then a bad penalty led to a GA and we shrank into a ball. Only difference was we found that something good this gane unlike the ottawa one. This team cant handle adversity rn, idk how you would address it but someone need to tell them to stop beating themselves down after something bad happens

 

[Anglesmith]

The comeback is not indicative of hiw fragile this tean can be, when things start to go right, we can pile on no problem. The issue is when the bad thing happen. How many times have we seen this team play good, gets scored on then all hell breaks lose. This is the same vibe i got from thw ottawa game. We were the better team, then a bad penalty led to a GA and we shrank into a ball. Only difference was we found that something good this gane unlike the ottawa one. This team cant handle adversity rn, idk how you would address it but someone need to tell them to stop beating themselves down after something bad happens

I'd agree with that. They seem to feel sorry for themselves. There's definitely an issue with their mentality. There have been very few exceptions where they've responded positively to something bad happening.

 

[Calculon]

Gulutzan's whole post game press conference was basically on that topic


Gulutzan clearly a smart guy albeit a bit listless, so a part of me wonders what he'd accomplish with a competent assistant coaching staff, one that coach bring some semblance of structure to the defense. Maybe things would be better, maybe not.

 

[Flameshomer]

Slept on it but that only made me more angry. Fire gulutzan yesterday

 

[TheJudge]

I PVRed the middle 17 minutes of the third period, covered up the score with a post it note and watched it 3 times. Turns out we won 12 - 0. Awesome!

 

[FlamerForLife]

Smith was not great tonight. I try not to blame the goalie usually, but he inexplicably looked away on the first goal and let in a softy on the third goal. The rest, I don't blame him for, but it made a big difference in the game. I thought the Khaira goal was a real backbreaker. Brossoit almost played chiropractor in the third, though.

To be fair to Smith he admitted that in after hours, that he needed to make the save on the 3rd goal and that it was a backbreaker.

 

[Mobiandi]

Khaira could've pitched a tent with all the time and space he found himself with in front of the net. Yeah it was a weak shot, but our defense was nowhere to be seen which has been the story all season

 

[MonyontheMoney]

Brodie is literally one of the dumbest hockey players I’ve ever watched.

 

[Skobel24]

Brodie is literally one of the dumbest hockey players I’ve ever watched.

I don't understand what happened to him. Too much time spent with Wideman maybe? He did well with Stone last year, I'd like to put them back together for a bit. Move Hamonic down with Kulak.

 

[Anglesmith]

I don't understand what happened to him. Too much time spent with Wideman maybe? He did well with Stone last year, I'd like to put them back together for a bit. Move Hamonic down with Kulak.

He's done well with Stone this year, too. In about two games.

 

[Tkachuk Norris]

I’m much less upset. We seem to fall apart every time we play the Oilers. I don’t know why I expected anything else.

 

[MonyontheMoney]

I don't understand what happened to him. Too much time spent with Wideman maybe? He did well with Stone last year, I'd like to put them back together for a bit. Move Hamonic down with Kulak.

I’d certainly not be against that

 

[FlamerForLife]

Hopefully the boys respond with a win tomorrow against a struggling Philly team.

 

[Baxterman]

I don't understand what happened to him. Too much time spent with Wideman maybe? He did well with Stone last year, I'd like to put them back together for a bit. Move Hamonic down with Kulak.

I guess at this point you need to try anything but I am not sure I really want to see Kulak against good players or a Brodie-Stone pairing against them either so that puts a lot of pressure on the top pair and that is probably not the best use of Hamilton.

It is weird the spot the Flames are in because pre-season it looked like a great fit with the LH and RH mix and going with the Gio-Hamilton, Brodie-Hamonic pairs as they both looked like they could defend top lines and produce top points but now that they didn't work the mix seems terrible to change it up because of style of play and LH/RH mix. A lot of that has to do with Brodie's drop off but the mix really doesn\t work well with Brodie basically needing to be sheltered defensively and hamonic/hamilton being righties.

I think the best option at this point is to scrap the LH/RH and try Brodie back with Gio and Hamilton with Hamonic. Hope that Hamonic can play the left side and that Brodie regains some of the play he had in the past on the offside and with Gio.

Replacing Kulak with a competent defender may work so that you can pair that guy with Hamonic as a shutdown pair to try and limit the amount of time Gio-Hamilton need to be in that role and allow them to create more offense.

 

[FlamerForLife]

Not so fun facts:
Since Gully has taken over we're 0-5-1 against the Oilers, been outscored 31-16 by the Oilers, given up the first goal 5/6 times, lost 3 of those 6 games by at least 3 goals and given up 7 goals in a game 3 times against them.
Edmonton just has our number, hopefully it changes soon.

 

[Unlimited Chequing]

I PVRed the middle 17 minutes of the third period, covered up the score with a post it note and watched it 3 times. Turns out we won 12 - 0. Awesome!