Wednesday, December 13, 2006

 

It's good to be the king

The Flames now head out on a 6-game roadie that takes them to the (2-day) Christmas break. If -- and that's still a substantial if at this point -- they have success out there (say 4 Wins and/or 8 points), I don't know what to say except look the hell out.

Jarome Iginla is now leading the NHL in even-strength scoring with 27 points. The team leads the NHL at +29 (the roster is a combined +140). They lead the NHL with only 29 "minus" events; by way of comparison, Dallas is 3rd with 45 and Philly is 30th with 89.

12/22/40 has suddenly got to be considered as maybe the toughest line in the league to play against -- they take but they do not give. All 18/19/20 do is wreak havoc with their speed every shift. Kipper is T-2nd in the league in SV%, augmenting the advantage gained by allowing the poorest quality shots in the league. And not to be forgotten, their best pure defensive forward has been injured since October 19th.

Hell yeah I'm feeling good right now. The Flames pretty much have but two flaws right now. One is that their 3rd/4th lines produce nothing, but that is entirely compensated for by the fact that they also allow virtually nothing. The other is the PP/PK away from the 'Dome, and the next 6 games will tell the tale. If they can achieve the modest goal of not being totally dominated on special teams, they're going to have a good road trip, and we're off to the races. Go Flames.

Comments:

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Might as well add to the positives - when's the last time the Flames chased the opposition's starting goaltender in back-to-back games??
 


Waitaminute. Where did you get those standings from?

The Oil are still in first place.
 


Hope they can play on the Road. But they are really 1/2 game back of the Oilers.... Games at hand mean nothing. The Oilers have had some injury issues. The Flames have to prove they can play outside the friendly confines of the crushed beer can.
 


according to nhl.com/standings the Oilers hold 1 point over the flames while the flames hold a two game advantage.

As your wife is sure to say, "it's okay Matt, it happens to every guy at some time".

FYI, both the Oilers and Flames websites have the Oilers ahead by one.
 


That standing is using baseball rankings. The Oil (& Wild) have one more win but 2 more losses (ties are ignored since they don't happen in Baseball) so that give the Flames a 1/2 game lead.
 


Matt's baseball style standings are right on -- the Flames trail the Oil by one in the win column, but lead by 2 in the loss column, which nets them a 1/2 game advantage if the standings were sorted the way baseball standings are.

And of course games in hand only count if you win them, but right now it seems like a pretty good bet the Flames will pull out at least one point in the 2 games they hold in hand. The upcoming road trip is the toughest of the year -- and eventually the Oilers will also have to go on the road, too, and they have been no screaming heck on enemy ice, either.

Yup, things are looking good right now. First place by Christmas ...
 


bah: well said
Games in hand mean nothing: absurd
The Oilers have had injury issues: waaahhh. I thought the Oil was loaded to the tits with Fwd prospects?
The Flames need to prove they can play outside the friendly confines: true, as noted.

And Grace -- thanks for using the future tense there...
 


baseball rankings? i hope the next game doesn't get rained out on your fake parade.
 


good one case
 


Oh man, please don't you start adopting the numbers thing rather than names.
 


Heh heh. Just for lines; I like it better than 3 names with hyphens or slashes between them.
 


I despise it. If you're so worried about those extra keystrokes, can't you use initials instead of numbers so that those of us who don't watch the Flames on a regular basis can follow your posts without having to pull up a damn team list?

Hell, I don't even know the Oilers numbers, nevermind the Flames, or the Penguins, or whoever else.
 


Deal.
 


Hell, I don't even know the Oilers numbers, nevermind the Flames, or the Penguins, or whoever else.

This is why I try to avoid it, although if I was writing for a basically Oilers exclusive audience, I'd probably lapse into it.

By the way, speaking of Dennis, he's dominating over at IOF today.
 

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