Newcomers, holdovers, forwards and defencemen are all being exposed in their own zone during Calgary's swoon
Defence (boom, boom)! Defence (boom, boom)! De … where’s the defence?
Certainly the Calgary Flames are struggling to find it these days after yet another beatdown in Tuesday’s 6-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. In three games since the trade deadline passed, the Flames have resoundingly lost them all by a combined 18-5 score. The high-octane Avalanche fortunately let up after scoring five unanswered second-period goals or it would have been worse. Let’s be honest, the third period could have been running time to mitigate the carnage.
Undoubtedly, trading away Noah Hanifin — who returns to Calgary Thursday night with the Vegas Golden Knights — and Chris Tanev has created a massive hole on the blueline. Number-one goaltender Jacob Markstrom suffering a lower-body injury, likely in the morning skate, did not help matters, and then icing an even more inexperienced lineup because Andrew Mangiapane was ill and Andrei Kuzmenko was unable to play after taking the pre-game warmup exacerbated the issues. It was a perfect cocktail for the Flames to be dominated, and it came true.
"The new faces, I don’t think are the issue, per se,” coach Ryan Huska told the media after. “There’s guys on the ice that have been here for a number of years that have still made mistakes over the last few games that they normally don’t make. For us, the teaching is something that we have to do a little bit more of as we move forward, and we’ll continue to do that, but it’s making sure that what’s made this team a good team is they’ve got some edge or pushback, and the last two games that’s been missing, and that’s something that we have to get back."
Yes, the slew of new players has the Flames looking much like we saw in the opening month as they tried to integrate into a different defensive system. But, indeed, these past few games have been a group performance that bombed worse than when Ryan Reynolds and company brought Green Lantern to the big screen.
“Not good enough, I mean I gotta play way better than I’m doing. Just not good enough,” Rasmus Andersson said.
“I’m on for three goals against. … I gotta be better, and I’ll be better.”
Light does exist on the horizon. The Golden Knights may be the defending Stanley Cup champions, but are not currently playing at the calibre of the three teams which have lit up the Flames (which also includes the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes), and Calgary’s schedule following is not nearly as much of a gauntlet as we have seen during this swoon. So, the odds of a continued freefall via shellackings are not as high, but only if the players return to a better defensive structure.
Now, more thoughts from the affair:
- For those holding out hope, Calgary’s playoff hopes are down to 2.2% according to moneypuck.com.
- Nazem Kadri insisted effort is not the issue, and it has not been for this team all season. “It’s more just a lapse in judgment, bad reads, those kind of things,” he said. “Effort’s never been an issue for us.”
- Nobody should be evaluating any of the new players too deeply during this stretch, especially in a negative light, as the Flames go through something of a second training camp. That said, Daniil Miromanov is showing some offensive flair, maybe a little too much at times when he looks like a bit of a rover, but better to rein in a thoroughbred than have to motivate a jackass.
- Hat tip to Postmedia’s Danny Austin for noting that in Tuesday’s game Yegor Sharangovich, acquired last summer, had the fifth most games played for the Flames. The blueline brigade is not the lone area of changes.
- Amidst this swoon, the Seattle Kraken, St. Louis Blues, Minnesota Wild and Washington Capitals have all leapfrogged the Flames in the standings, while the Buffalo Sabres have pulled even. That is worth noting with draft position looking more important than the playoff situation.
