The Flames play the first of 4-outta-5 at home tonight, versus the Dallas Stars (8PM MST). In a reversal of the schedule from Friday, the Flames home game starts 2-1/2 hours after the Oil's eastern roadie, and again both are being shown on RSN West.

The Flames of course went 11-deep in a shootout then, meaning the Oiler game came on the tube at the 9-minute mark of the first. This probably means that tonight's Oil-Habs game will be a spiritless, penalty-free affair where one team wins by 3 or 4 -- leaving enough time before the puck drops in Calgary for John Garrett to tell us what a terrific season Marty Turco is having.

Speaking of goaltending: I veer around to this point every month or so these days, but the Flames are really cocking up the Backup Goaltending Situation. I've been wrong on plenty of things over the life of this blog, but there's nothing I'd like to retract so much as this, from December 23rd '05:

...I think the Flames' organization is presently a place that maximizes the likelihood of strong goaltending.

Ahhh... was I ever so young? Evidence to the contrary has piled high over this calendar year:

• The Sauve discharge was handled extremely poorly (although they appear to have been correct to ditch him), and we managed to get rid of one of our few "hands" guys in the process. Also, both players received in return (Boucher and Leclerc) were ineffective and were not resigned after the season.
• Boucher came in, and was given 2 starts over the next 30 games. After he blew the 2nd one, he didn't start again until the final game of the season (when the playoff seedings were already set).
• Then they signed Jamie McLennan in the offseason, who sounds like a super guy, but he is 35 years old and has never been a #1 quality goalie. He rode the pine for every minute of the Flames first 11 games; then (surprise!) wasn't that good when they put him in; then was treated to this comment:

"I thought we scored enough goals to end it (in regulation). I thought we scored enough goals to end it during the shootout. Our goaltender didn't do the job to give us the two points." - Jim Playfair

• They sent Brent Krahn to the minors over the objections of absolutely no one in the media, despite the fact that none of these same people actually believe McLennan is the better goalie.
• The excuse was that Krahn needed the PT ("needs to spend the year as a #1 goalie in the NHL", or thereabouts) for the sake of his development -- I do not grant this premise, but whatever -- and yet all season, Krahn and McElhinney have been alternating starts! W! T! F!
• Just to be clear, this isn't a situation where the affiliate is independent. The majority owner of the Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights is the Calgary Flames (General Manager: one Darryl J. Sutter).
  

The punchline here, though I'm not laughing, is this: in the 2003-04 season, where Kipper was spectacular through most of 26 playoff games, he started a total of 38 regular season games.

Surely (surely?) the organization cannot believe that starting Miikka Kiprusoff in 70 regular season games is (A) a necessity in order to make the playoffs, or (B) the best way to have Kipper 100% fit and peaking for said postseason. Check that -- while (B) is bordering on ludicrous, if they do believe (A) then it is past time to upgrade the backup to someone more capable.

For tonight's game, though, no such worries. Kipper will be in goal, and the Flames will start to regain their Saddledome mojo. A 3-1 victory (2 PP goals by Regehr & Tanguay, 1 ES goal by Tanguay) will hit the spot, and serve as a nice warmup for handing the Ducks their first 60-minute L of the year on Friday. Go Flames.