The 1-5-0 Calgary Flames carry on their early season death march tonight in what should be a spirited return to the Scotiabank Saddledome.
The opposition? The 4-1-0 5th place Winnipeg Jets. Their stars are producing. Mark Sheifele has nine points in five games and Kyle Connor has eight in five. The rest of the offence is pulling their weight; the Jets have the third sharpest offence so far with 4.20 goals per game. Their defence is humming along at 2.40 goals against per game (7th) on the back of Connor Hellebuyck, who has a .915 save percentage through four games.
Things are good in Winnipeg. For Calgary? Not so good.
Their defence ranks third-last behind only Chicago and San Jose (two fully-tanked rosters) at 4.17 goals against per game. Their offence is unsustainably bad at 1.67 goals per game—and they sit in last place with two points. The San Jose Sharks, who haven’t won a game yet, have a better record than the Flames.
If you’re a Flames fan and still reading, one can only assume that you are a complete and total masochist. Nice to be in here with the freaks.
Defence Issues
Head coach Ryan Huska continues the blue line shuffle. Here is tonight’s projected defence courtesy of Pat Steinberg. @Fan960Steinberg
Bahl-Andersson
Bean-Weegar
Hanley-Parekh
Jake Bean’s promotion into the top four isn’t based on merit. He was as bad as the rest of the gang on Saturday night when they were subjected to a 6-1 stinker at the hands of the Golden Knights.
Kevin Bahl was awful. Joel Hanley was awful. Zayne Parekh looks overwhelmed. Huska is in tough, but luckily has a large contingent of the fan base expecting a bad season or two before they get back to contending.
It’s just a matter of time before they right the ship, but this start looks worse than their 2-6-1 October in 2023. On the positive side, that stumble led to Connor Zary and Martin Pospisil getting a real shot to earn a spot with the big team. An opportunity they both ran with.
Beached Shark
Yegor Sharangovich will watch from the player’s box tonight. The six-foot-three sniper was lambasted by Kevin Bieksa on Hockey Night in Canada and received volley articles from media members such as Wes Gilbertson and Eric Francis.
Most notably, the 27 year old failed to pick up Mark Stone on Vegas’ third goal.
The former 31 goal scorer rang a howitzer off of the top corner of Adin Hill’s net late in the first period—a goal would have likely saved him from the heavy scrutiny of a Canadian market.
Sharangovich may have been sacrificed to the Hockey Gods, but aside from Ryan Lomberg, Adam Klapka and Jonathan Huberdeau, the rest of the forward group had an unacceptably bad game as well. You can’t bench everyone. Let’s take a look at how they’re projected to roll out tonight.
Calgary Flames Projected Lineup
Huberdeau-Kadri-Farabee
Coleman-Backlund-Coronato
Honzek-Frost-Zary
Lomberg-Kirkland-Klapka
Bahl-Andersson
Bean-Weegar
Hanley-Parekh
Wolf
Cooley
Winnipeg Jets Projected Lineup
Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Niederreiter-Toews-Nyquist
Iafallo-Namestnikov-Lambert
Koepke-Barron-Pearson
Ford, Chibrikov
Morrissey-DeMelo
Stanley-Pionk
Fleury-Schenn
Miller
Hellebuyck
Comrie
Game time is set for 7:30 P.M. MST.
Stats courtesy of Cap Wages, Natural Stat Trick and the National Hockey League. Winnipeg lineup courtesy of Mitchell Clinton.
KEEP READING:
Odds Stacked Against Flames in Showdown with Vegas
Calgary Flames Limp Through Early Season Slog
Neufeld: 7 Bold Predictions Heading into the New Season
Five Former Flames Head Coaches: Where are they now?
Follow on X: @Trevor_Neufeld
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Thanks Trevor.
I seem to remember an article earlier, stating the tough schedule the Flames were up against. Looks like someone was right.
I agree on Bahl, one of the worse games I can remember from him. Hanley has looked slow, Bean seems to be holding back. Weegar hasn’t been his steady self. I thought Pachal has had some good games when he gets to play. Andersson, like him or hate him has probably been our best D.
I give Parekh a pass, he does a lot of good things out there in the O zone, eventually ones going in for him then I think we’ll see him relax a bit more.
Miromanov on waivers, finally I’m suprised it took this long.
Looks like Bieska has some clout, his barrage of Sharagovich seems to have caught the attention of the Flames coaching staff. Maybe this is what he needs is to be embarrassed for his effort by the media. Hopefully it lights a fire under his arse.
What’s Huska doing with Zary? He’s all over the lineup, playing on every line. Give the kid some stability for a change, it’s got to be confusing not knowing your role.
Just the Flames luck, they’re sucking and the top generational player is a winger. A left winger to boot. 😳