Calgary Puck

The Flames opened the season with two dominant performances, at least territorially but only one win. Tonight they found a win despite relying pretty heavily on their goaltender. I guess these things even out over the course of a season.

The Flames also leaned on a red hot powerplay, as their top unit scored two more times tonight to pace the team to a big road win in a tough barn in Nashville.

Next up the Flames travel to St. Louis to take on the Blues on Thursday night and it’s probably a good thing that Mike Smith is scheduled to get that night off. Lord knows he stopped enough pucks for two starts in picking up his second win of the season tonight.

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That’s clearly one of those games that will appear to have gone much smoother by the results on the scoreboard then the reality that took place on the ice.

The Flames, pretty much dominating the proceedings through forty minutes needed four third period goals to erase a 4-3 Vancouver lead and avoid what would have been a city wide gripper in opening the season 0-2-0 to the Vancouver Canucks.

Much like the curtain raiser in Vancouver, the Flames held the lion’s share of the play, but this time their powerplay didn’t quell momentum, it savagely finished things off.

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The more things change the more they just stay the same, at least if you spend your time watching hockey in Calgary.

Change the coach. Make a big trade. Make some free agent signings. No matter, seasons still start with losses, often to either Edmonton or Vancouver. It’s clockwork.

Tonight the recipe for disaster was one part tentative start, one part putrid powerplay … ok two parts putrid powerplay, and one part running up the shot and chance clocks without an ability to finish as the Flames go down for the ninth straight season opener, this time 5-2 to the Vancouver Canucks.

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The exhibition season in the NHL is always a tough time of year to assess hockey teams for the upcoming season. To take in new players in new lines playing new roles for new teams. There’s too much patchwork in each roster to really get a solid read on things.

This year is somewhat different however.

The Flames took the upper 90% of their roster to China for the ORG Games, a two game preseason set against the Boston Bruins, in hopes of fostering a quick gel towards getting off to a solid start in the upcoming NHL campaign.

The Bruins, went a different route, bringing a lot of their team, but allowing many of their key players including Patrice Bergergon, Tory Krug, Zdeno Chara and David Krejci to nurse injuries or just avoid the hassle.

Regardless of the make up of each roster this is Calgary’s first look at the revamped Flames, even if they had to stay up to the wee hours to see it.

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You have to give Brad Treliving credit; when he said the team needed some change he certainly didn’t rest on some tinkering to alter his roster after a disappointing season.

When you topple your coaching staff, trade one of the top defensemen in the circuit, and make noise by signing one of the more sought after free agents, people take notice.

Change however, can’t merely be for the sake of change, there has to be method in madness or a management group can be guilty of merely appeasing fans without getting a whole lot done. – Full Article –