What’s the difference between a Canadian hockey market and one located on the southern end of the United States?
Not a peep coming out of the media about Tampa’s slow start.
Enjoying the drama via discussion, rumour articles, and broadcast panels is just part of a more immersed sports market. Calgary is no exception.
The last two days have seen hockey’s two biggest insiders publish articles on the Calgary Flames. Darren Dreger and Elliotte Friedman. I’ll link their stuff at the bottom, but let’s read between the lines for a minute on each of their columns.
Elliotte Friedman’s 32 Thoughts
Friedman starts by pointing out that lateral moves and panic decisions are available. He also points out that general manager Craig Conroy is great at eliminating outside noise and points out the 2023-24 season where Noah Hanifin, Nikita Zadorov, Chris Tanev, and Elias Lindholm were all shipped out.
Elliotte finishes off his hard intro that preempts the actual 32 thoughts with a message of patience. Let this season be. Very similar to Eric Francis’ piece on burning a few years to get some talent that came out this week. No coincidence. All of these guys play ball with Flames Media.
One more fun morsel from Friedman’s piece? He points out that the No Move Clause in Nazem Kadri’s converts to a 13-team No Trade list in thought #1–usually Elliotte’s quiet way of alluding that he knows something that he can’t elaborate further on.
Let’s look at Darren Dreger’s piece.
Darren Dreger on Insider Trading
A bit of a different message from TSN’s side. Dreger points out that Craig Conroy isn’t sitting on his hands. He’s making calls and doing his job and looking into deals that might help the Flames score more goals.
Good luck with that.
The team has enough talent to score. Whether it’s narrowly missing three or four great chances at tying the game in the late third against Winnipeg or just the entire 2-1 OT loss to Montreal, a raging storm of bad luck hangs over this team. I’m a Hockey Gods believer, but you can assign blame however you like.
One more insider. Let’s do Frank Seravalli.
Frank stirs up the trade interest angle and sends a message of, “The sale hasn’t started yet, so give Craig a call and lay some groundwork.”
A fun one from Seravalli. For what it’s worth, I think he’s the most fun of the big fish.
Explaining the Losses
On a technical side, the Calgary Flames certainly below average at a few things. Their forecheck isn’t mediocre; it’s awful. Their strongest forechecker, Martin Pospisil, is day-to-day and isn’t practicing. Their veterans are taking turns putting up a strong game, but aren’t providing the consistency needed to have any degree of depth scoring.
The defence finds themselves out of position at the worst possible timing. Everyone but Weegar struggles to clear the front of the net.
Worst of all? Old fashioned bad luck. The Flames have gotten so close to scoring so many times through eight games. The score could have easily been 3-0 by the end of the first period on Wednesday against the Habs.
It’s worth noting that the entire team starting on a cold streak may lead to the entire team getting hot around the same time. We’ll see how long they can sustain it if they do.
Something tells me that the tide will turn with the flip of the calendar to November. One defined characteristic with this era of Flames hockey is that they put up a questionable amount of comeback wins in the second month of the season. The schedule also lets up substantially.
Unfortunately for the Flames, it may get darker before the dawn. Tonight is the Winnipeg Jets, who are a wagon and played uncharacteristically poorly against the Flames earlier this week. Then the Rangers, who Calgary has figured out how to beat, but generally at a cost.
The month is then capped off with the Senators and Leafs, who swept the Flames in their respective season series’ last year.
Flames Ice Chips
-Dryden Hunt has been recalled from the AHL Wranglers. That may be due to Nazem Kadri taking an elbow from Lane Hutson on Wednesday. Kadri took a maintenance day yesterday.
-Optional skate today, so no lineups until warm up. Wolf gets the start.
-Matvei Gridin has two goals and an assist since joining the Wranglers. Not to be outdone, Rory Kerins has two goals and an assist in those same two games.
-Defenceman Hunter Brzustewicz has four points (1g, 3a) in four games with the Wranglers this season.
-Something is up with Aydar Suniev, who has zero points and is a -4 in four games this year.
KEEP READING:
Analyzing the Calgary Flames Early Season Stumble
Odds Stacked Against Flames in Showdown with Vegas
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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