Series Discussion: Calgary Flames (1-3) host the Edmonton Oilers in the first Battle of Alberta of the Millenium

[Aqualung]

 

[Anglesmith]

I basically didn't sleep last night, but upon reflection, this series was all about Games 2, 4 and 5.

Games 1 and 3 were each team's worst game respectively, with the Oilers not playing defence in Game 1 and the Flames not showing up to Game 3.

Games 2, 4 and 5 all followed the same old tired script from so many of the BOA games the last few years. A whole bunch of shit happens, and one way or another we get to the third period with the game in the balance. And every time, we find a way to lose. Game 2 a shorty while pressing for the win. Game 4 a shift where we lost every battle. Game 5 Toronto intervened.

Ultimately we were a bounce away in each of those games, but only against Edmonton do we seem so incapable of controlling play when we have the lead. There's always this air of inevitability. Looking back, it's exactly why I never wanted to play the Oilers.

 

[Mobiandi]

They approach playoff series like they're regular season games. Consistently win game 1 and expect that teams will roll over for them in game 2. Then they panic and lose game 3 and it's an uphill battle all of a sudden.

Nobody demonstrates this better than Tkachuk

 

[HighLifeMan]

1. We lost the goaltending matchup convincingly (this is shocking to me)
2. We lost the coaching battle (this is shocking to me)
3. They had the four best forwards in the series (this is shocking to me)

That's really what it comes down to - and even with all that said this series should not have ended in five games. Games 2,4, and 5 were all complete toss up games that we somehow managed to lose due to varying degrees of reasons. The oilers got plenty of bounces this series. That's playoff hockey.

For a series that really wasn't all that physical I thought Gaudreau was a complete disappointment. Tkachuk was again the worst player on that line after game one.

When Mikael Backlund is by far and away your best player in a series you are in deep trouble. Props to him for trying to drag his lifeless teammates into the fight. He truly did his best. I did not see that same fire from our top line, or 90% of the team for that matter.

The defense was what it was. Chris Tanev missing games and playing at what looked to be 25% was a massive blow against a team that is so top heavy. He is the only defender on this team with the ability to somewhat contain that top line.

The Oilers wanted it more, and that hurts to say.

 

[Bounces R Way]

We got absolutely McDunked on

 

[Ace Rimmer]

1. We lost the goaltending matchup convincingly (this is shocking to me)
2. We lost the coaching battle (this is shocking to me)
3. They had the four best forwards in the series (this is shocking to me)

This.

So much this.

 

[crazyfisherman]

Idk if they showed this on TV but they showed Mony on the jumbotron yesterday and he got an roaring ovation. Just thought it was funny and cool at the same time that we both love him and hate on him

 

[Tofveve]

Not my favorite thing to mention, but when I track back to where the turning point in this series flipped to Edmonton, it was probably at the Gaudreau dive call after we were up 2 zip in the first period of the 2nd game. Then they got that shorty to add insult to injury.

From then it seemed the wind was taken out of our sails and our drive was gone.

I suppose it wasn't entirely gone, but it was sadly stricken.

Then you had the horrid start to game 4 by Markstrom with the gaff 19 seconds in or whatever that was. And then the Toffoli trip leading to a goal and Edmontons up 2 nothing half way into the first of a must win.

I think Toffoli's horrid PP involvement contributed to the souring of our top line, for real. I think with the effort Johnny puts in when possessions in their end are killed on sloppy passes to the opposition its just really hard to deal with. I don't doubt it could have affected Chucky too. And to be fair, Lindy wasn't super great all playoffs. He was decent but also underperformed.

And as good as Backlund was in games 4 and 5, he did have stretches of disappearance in Dallas series.

It seemed no one was that great over the whole playoff run.

Remarkably we fought hard in game 5 but the goal being called back on Coleman was the death blow it seemed.

I saw lack of belief, desire to keep enduring the punishment and maybe a feeling we were dealing with biased reffing all series.

Anywho. Just some thoughts.

 

[Ace Rimmer]

Good guy Flames, making eeeryone look good

 

[Anglesmith]

Not my favorite thing to mention, but when I track back to where the turning point in this series flipped to Edmonton, it was probably at the Gaudreau dive call after we were up 2 zip in the first period of the 2nd game. Then they got that shorty to add insult to injury.

From then it seemed the wind was taken out of our sails and our drive was gone.

I suppose it wasn't entirely gone, but it was sadly stricken.

Then you had the horrid start to game 4 by Markstrom with the gaff 19 seconds in or whatever that was. And then the Toffoli trip leading to a goal and Edmontons up 2 nothing half way into the first of a must win.

I think Toffoli's horrid PP involvement contributed to the souring of our top line, for real. I think with the effort Johnny puts in when possessions in their end are killed on sloppy passes to the opposition its just really hard to deal with. I don't doubt it could have affected Chucky too. And to be fair, Lindy wasn't super great all playoffs. He was decent but also underperformed.

And as good as Backlund was in games 4 and 5, he did have stretches of disappearance in Dallas series.

It seemed no one was that great over the whole playoff run.

Remarkably we fought hard in game 5 but the goal being called back on Coleman was the death blow it seemed.

I saw lack of belief, desire to keep enduring the punishment and maybe a feeling we were dealing with biased reffing all series.

Anywho. Just some thoughts.

Definitely that second period of Game 2 drastically shifted the momentum of the series. The 6-2 PP advantage that brought the Oilers back into the game.

What's extra crazy about that play you are talking about is that not only did Gaudreau get assessed a dive on a play where there was zero reason to call a dive, but on the whistle Nurse, with no provocation, went after Lindholm and started roughing him... leading to Lindholm being assessed a penalty.

So a play where the Oilers cheated in order to prevent a 2-on-1, they wound up drawing two penalties while taking one.

That same game, of course, the refs wiped out a goal for the Oilers and went upstairs to check, then in the third wiped out a Flames goal and didn't bother going upstairs.

I remember at the time thinking "no big deal, just typical Game 2 BS," but of course it looms a lot larger in retrospect.

Make no mistake, the Oilers got big performances from their forwards and never let the Flames look comfortable, and probably deserved to win, but there were two games where the refs played a big role in swinging a tight game the Oilers' way.

Tkachuk... I don't think it was just confidence. He was a non-factor in way too many games. He seemed to be playing with less edge than a regular season game. I wouldn't be surprised if he was hurt, but at the same time this is now a bit of a pattern.

 

[Ace Rimmer]

Beastarov

 

[crazyfisherman]

Beastarov

Outside of game 2 vs edm he had a really good playoff

 

[I Hate Blake Coleman]

Maybe I'm getting old but why would you let Tanev play if he was that banged up? They gotta start shelving these guys earlier than they have been. Zadorov's ribs sound f***ed to all hell too. How painful would that be? He must've been shot full of painkillers.

 

[Backlund]

Maybe I'm getting old but why would you let Tanev play if he was that banged up? They gotta start shelving these guys earlier than they have been. Zadorov's ribs sound f***ed to all hell too. How painful would that be? He must've been shot full of painkillers.

It's not like he hasn't done it before. Tanev is willing to play thru some serious injuries and our defense looks bad without him. Having him slots everyone a lot better. Kylington looks like a completely different player with him instead of Stone.

 

[Tofveve]

Definitely that second period of Game 2 drastically shifted the momentum of the series. The 6-2 PP advantage that brought the Oilers back into the game.

What's extra crazy about that play you are talking about is that not only did Gaudreau get assessed a dive on a play where there was zero reason to call a dive, but on the whistle Nurse, with no provocation, went after Lindholm and started roughing him... leading to Lindholm being assessed a penalty.

So a play where the Oilers cheated in order to prevent a 2-on-1, they wound up drawing two penalties while taking one.

That same game, of course, the refs wiped out a goal for the Oilers and went upstairs to check, then in the third wiped out a Flames goal and didn't bother going upstairs.

I remember at the time thinking "no big deal, just typical Game 2 BS," but of course it looms a lot larger in retrospect.

Make no mistake, the Oilers got big performances from their forwards and never let the Flames look comfortable, and probably deserved to win, but there were two games where the refs played a big role in swinging a tight game the Oilers' way.

Tkachuk... I don't think it was just confidence. He was a non-factor in way too many games. He seemed to be playing with less edge than a regular season game. I wouldn't be surprised if he was hurt, but at the same time this is now a bit of a pattern.

Good thoughts.

One thing I almost mentioned in that post is a person can go through my post history and I can assure anyone I have never ever supported the concept of dive penalties. Similar to how I've never denigrated the +/- stat (I've always thought it was legit decades before our first line's amazing season). Anyway, regarding dives, having played at a pretty competitive level I know for a fact there are times where your legs just went out legitimately but could easily been seen as a dive to those not in your shoes. The game is played at such a fast pace that a myriad of balance issues can come into play instanteously. I've never seen true diving as a serious league problem, like soccer. If something is so extreme it can't be denied then make it a misconduct penalty but in frequency with how the game is played they should be almost non-existent. If a player hooks or trips that's a penalty; if the player on the receiving end looks to go down easy, that's moot point IMO. The dive call is one of the most easily manipulated and subjective ref interference plays in the game and as a whole totally unhelpful IMO. I've seen so many dive calls against players nullifying legit PP opportunities its sickening. So no, I didn't think it should have been a call against Gaudreau; and like you said Nurse could have been assessed a double minor that same shift.

Also, like you mentioned, the penalty parade against us also really stalled our momentum. I seem to recall Chris Cuthbert saying they had over 9 minutes of PP time in the 2nd period of game 2 to our 1 minute and 37 seconds. Something like that. I think they only scored one on the PP, but all of those 2nd game setbacks combined really seemed to put us on our heels. Super tough mentally and physically to get through all of that after an already draining Dallas series with little break in between. It just continued into later games.

Regarding Tkachuk, I didn't quite see the awfulness of his play most others did though I can't disagree it fell off for sure and I must have been pretty blind to it. I thought he had a relatively decent game 5. But, conceding he played shitty for the games 2-4, I was thinking about this last night. I wonder if his brother and family hanging around was a big distraction? I mean he and Brady are close and the whole sideshow was a tad strange. I hope it didn't play a role in Matthew staying out late and being distracted. I wondered similarly the Gaudreaus being around. These guys need to keep focused and disciplined and I wonder if in the future that will be guarded more carefully. I hope so.

 

[Tofveve]

Outside of game 2 vs edm he had a really good playoff

Yes, once his penalty parade carried over from round one was ended, overall he was decent for us I agree.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Clearly next season our TDL acquisition needs to be our own cancer kid.