GDT: Flames in Dallas: the Solar Bowl. 6:30 MT on SN360

[Mobiandi]

People need to breathe. If we come out of October above .500, it's a win. This team is always in holiday mode until like mid-November

 

[Body Checker]

I haven't minded Ryan and Lucic's games. Bennett has been crap and Frolik looks half way out the door. Czarnik deserves to get in next game. The kid has guts. Bennett or Frolik can sit.

 

[DFF]

I haven't minded Ryan and Lucic's games. Bennett has been crap and Frolik looks half way out the door. Czarnik deserves to get in next game. The kid has guts. Bennett or Frolik can sit.

Wonder if lucic and Bennett consider seeing an eye doctor. They looked like two blind men on the ice.

 

[super6646]

People need to breathe. If we come out of October above .500, it's a win. This team is always in holiday mode until like mid-November

Respectfully, I don’t think fans have the patience for this stuff every year. This team’s best contending years are now and they still cannot play consistently well and have a ton of holes in their roster. It’s early, but this team doesn’t look at all like the 2018-19 roster. If the depth doesn’t show up, this roster is essentially 2017-18 with maybe a marginally better top 6. Rittich isn’t playing 930 hockey all year.

 

[super6646]

I'd argue that penalties are sinking this team, too.
They're coming out of the gate sloppy, and then getting into penalty trouble. In the first 4 games of the season, we've been short handed 16 times already; you can rarely get momentum back on your side when you're sitting in the box all night.

They need to rework that bottom 6, pretty badly. It's just not working right now, but it has the pieces to be pretty good. Mangiapane has clearly taken the 2RW spot as of today, and I'd like to keep him there... But man...

Lucic, Bennett, Jankowski, Ryan and Frolik need a shot of life here. I really haven't minded Lucic's game until last night, where he really wasn't great. Bennett has been a disappointment. Jankowski I already thought was very bad, and he's just proving me right so far... Ryan and Frolik, I really think they should unite those two and kind of go for one of those "Get out of there together". If Bennett is going to play like a bonehead, then you need to sit his ass down or give him 5 Even strength minutes a night.

Maybe something along the lines of:

Frolik - Ryan - Rieder (a solid shutdown 3rd line, that could chip in)
Lucic - Jankowski - Bennett (sheltered 4th line that could maybe cause some havoc).

Dunno.
This is where that top 6C we were looking for all summer would have been great.

Penalty trouble has also been concerning as well.

I think Bennett-Ryan-Frolik is the best bet for the third line at this point, but our fourth line is REALLY weak in this case, and lucic-jankowski is screaming disaster. Either way, things cannot stick as is much longer.

 

[Iggys Dome]

Call up Quine, scratch Janko.

4th line of
Rieder-Quine-Czarnik is pretty decent IMO. Hell you could keep Jankowski on that line and it’d be decent. Keep Lucic and Jankowski away from each other.

 

[Mobiandi]

Respectfully, I don’t think fans have the patience for this stuff every year. This team’s best contending years are now and they still cannot play consistently well and have a ton of holes in their roster. It’s early, but this team doesn’t look at all like the 2018-19 roster. If the depth doesn’t show up, this roster is essentially 2017-18 with maybe a marginally better top 6. Rittich isn’t playing 930 hockey all year.

I'm personally not ringing any alarm bells until February at the earliest. This team already knows how to play to their best between November and the ASG. It's up to them to now figure out how to buckle down when the games get tighter and teams start fighting for their lives.

After a regular season conference title and 50 win season was erased by an embarrassing 5 game performance in the playoffs, I've stopped putting much stock in what goes on in the early stages of the regular season. Another recent example, last year, Buffalo looked like world beaters for the first few months and Vegas looked like a lottery team.

 

[Rubi]

The Flames squeak out their 2nd win of the season. I know its early yet but to be honest I thought the Flames would be doing better than they have so far, particularly since they had such a great regular season last year.
With that in mind I thought I would check to see how the Flames were doing last year after 4 games...

No worse than last year but then again last year they were playing under a new coach with a new system. The Flames definitely have to do something about the number of stupid penalties they are taking. Not sure what the solution is. Put Bennett in the press box for a couple of games?? If nothing else the Flames will be blue line toe-drag free for a couple of games.... sheesh... what was he thinking??? Or does he???

 

[Kranix]

I'm gonna cry here but I'm DONE with Bennett!! He's never gonna break out!

 

[Janks]

I'm gonna cry here but I'm DONE with Bennett!! He's never gonna break out!

Career done at 23

 

[Nanuuk]

Bennett is working his way to the 4th line. It seems more happens when Mangiapane is on the ice and he has knocked Benny down the depth chart.

But as I've said before, I don't think he is suited to be a RW. The Flames keep slotting him there as it always seems the top 3 LW spots are spoken for. Well either play him at C or play him at LW. If he can't take another players spot, then give him a chance elsewhere and trade for a natural RW.

 

[Kranix]

Career done at 23

It's over

 

[Rubi]

The Flames are #2 in the league with minor penalties accessed against them. 21 so far. With 4 games played that's an average of having to play shorthanded a little over 10 minutes per game due to mostly stupid actions by Flames players. Add in majors and the Flames are playing shorthanded on average 15:30 minutes per game.

 

[HighLifeMan]

What's with the overreactions? It's 4 games. and we have 5 points despite nothing really going our way so far.

Bennett had a great first two games, and has struggled in the past two - why are we running him out of town? Even elite players turn the puck over at the offensive blue line at times (Hello Jamie Benn). His undisciplined play comes from him trying to do to much - simplifying his game is all that is needed.

Rittich looks poised to solidify himself as a high end goaltender in this league. Monahan looks assertive, strong, and back to his healthy self. Mangiapane looks capable of fitting in on that 2nd line.

The bottom six will work itself out. Derek Ryan started incredibly slow last year and it came around. He is the key to that group turning it around.

This team just needs to get into a groove and play some 5 on 5 hockey. We have been far too undisciplined and quite frankly have not gotten the benefit from the officials to date.

There are some serious positives to take away from what we have seen (primarily the play of Rittich, Monahan, Hanifin, and Fat Ras)

 

[Kahvi]

The Flames are #2 in the league with minor penalties accessed against them. 21 so far. With 4 games played that's an average of having to play shorthanded a little over 10 minutes per game due to mostly stupid actions by Flames players. Add in majors and the Flames are playing shorthanded on average 15:30 minutes per game.

Some of those are simultaneous majors I guess that resulted in no PK time. And Flames have allowed goals on those minor penalties

 

[Rangediddy]

Monahan looks better than he ever has. He's going to make a difference not just on the goal sheet this year. He looks like he took the playoff bouncing serious and trained accordingly. Has been one of our best players every game so far... other than BSD

 

[InfinityIggy]

Monahan looks better than he ever has. He's going to make a difference not just on the goal sheet this year. He looks like he took the playoff bouncing serious and trained accordingly. Has been one of our best players every game so far... other than BSD

Monahan looks like he is right on the cusp of reaching that next level: a 1C who can carry the load every night. We will see if he gets there.

 

[Kahvi]

If I counted correctly, Flames have been shorthanded 32min 13s so thats around 8min 3s per game. Of course getting a penalty for 2minutes, and then opponent scoring in 10 seconds or 1min 50 seconds is essentially the same result, so this doesnt mean anything really. Or opposing team getting a penalty 1min after Flames penalty. I guess some kind of expected PK time calculation would be needed, to make difference between what "lot / few penalties" and "good / bad PK" can make.

 

[Rubi]

... another couple of worrisome stats...

Flames are 26th in the league in Shots Against with 35.5 /gp.
Flames are 25th in the league in Shots For with 29.5 / gp.

 

[Flames Fanatic]

We've certainly not played well overall. Top line has had flashes of brilliance and been hemmed in their own zone equally as much. Second line took a while to get going again, and the bottom six is fairly ineffectual outside of hitting things.

I think we'll still round into form overall, but last year we had so many career years it would be tough to repeat exactly to that level offensively. Even if we don't finish top 2 in goals for, if we finish top 10 and stop taking so many penalties, with how Rittich is playing we should be sitting pretty.

I would like to see Talbot sooner than later just to get a feel of what we have.

 

[Johnny Hoxville]

Yeah I agree, Monahan has looked like a beast this year. Really hope he takes that next step, he also needs to play consistent this year.

 

[Corpus X]

And the Flames are 3rd in the division and three points out of first in the conference.

 

[Rubi]

We've certainly not played well overall. Top line has had flashes of brilliance and been hemmed in their own zone equally as much. Second line took a while to get going again, and the bottom six is fairly ineffectual outside of hitting things.

I think we'll still round into form overall, but last year we had so many career years it would be tough to repeat exactly to that level offensively. Even if we don't finish top 2 in goals for, if we finish top 10 and stop taking so many penalties, with how Rittich is playing we should be sitting pretty.

I would like to see Talbot sooner than later just to get a feel of what we have.

I expect we shall see Talbot in goal against the Sharks on Sunday with Rittich playing the Knights on Saturday.

 

[JPeeper]

The Flames are #2 in the league with minor penalties accessed against them. 21 so far. With 4 games played that's an average of having to play shorthanded a little over 10 minutes per game due to mostly stupid actions by Flames players. Add in majors and the Flames are playing shorthanded on average 15:30 minutes per game.

They are also taking them in bunches. The Colorado game they took 2 penalties pretty much back to back to start the game which sunk them for the entire period. Vancouver they also started the game on the pk. LA they finally stopped taking penalties in the first and then the next 2 periods took them. Dallas was 5 powerplays to our 0 before we got our first one.

In the 4 games so far the Flames have really only showed up for a period in each game because of penalty trouble for the most part, LA we just sucked for 50 minutes.

 

[Shawnofthedeadz]

Just throwing on more praise for Monahan, what 5 shots last game? Thought he has had a lot more chances so far, in part by his better game each game so far. If he keeps this up all season I will be impressed and he certainly will surpass last year numbers. Might actually hit 50 goals this year.

Johnny has also been much more responsible so far this year, points will always come to him as he carries a lot of our play but just much more impressed on him actually taking defense seriously.

Only person I worry about is Lindholm, I feel playing him on the PK again is going to wear him out like last season. Not a fan despite how good he is on it. Otherwise, he is a stud.