I'm not on the train of "people need to sit for this effort," but they need to switch something up defensively, lower the minutes of Gio/Andersson and start changing the pairings/lines around. Putting Monahan, Gaudreau, Andersson, Leivo, and Giordano on the ice with the net empty doesn't make sense to me with how they struggled. Playing the same lines as though nothing was wrong is the major issue, Ward needed to adjust more.
With Backlund out, this should give Ward reason to switch things up. The thing holding the Flames back from truly changing the lines was wanting to keep the Backlund line together, and wanting Bennett on the 1st line over the 4th. This hopefully opens the way for Tkachuk to be lowered down the lineup
I'd consider it if you're confident he takes it the right way. But I'm sure that Tkachuk knows he's struggling, everyone on the team knows he's struggling, sitting him makes it better how? Unless you're VERY confident you're assistant captain is going to be even more inspired following a scratch it's a very risky move.
I think Ward's exhausted every other choice. He's let him play out of his funk and given him ample opportunities to get us "clutch" points, he's given his line softer minutes and less minutes. None of it has worked and he's gone past being invisible to becoming an outright detriment to the team.
Ward adjusted once and called it a day which is by no maens good, but I'm also under the impression that no one other than Valimaki and Markstrom showed up to play. You can't sit an entire team. Maybe targetting leadership is what it takes but it seems like the Flames took a struggling team lightly, and the Canucks had their season on the line. I wouldn't mind sitting Tkachuk or Dube, or even Giordano, but picking and choosing who to sit after that effort is a tough move since it was all shit.
The fact that Tkachuk led the team in ice time is a major issue after tonight. He's being elevated and the more I think about it giving him a night to look at things from up top would be ideal. That entire line didn't seem ideal outside of Lindholm playing angry so Tkachuk, Lindholm, and Dube leading in TOI just doesn't make sense.
Nah, I bet they think they improved..even Ward said so last game
I don't think it's a coincedence that Gio's best game of the season was when he was kept at 18 mins of ice time. He's 37, who are we trying to fool anymore?
