Tuesday, December 11, 2007

 

Flames Game Day: For you semi-skilled workers, there will be no Christmas bonuses

The Flames are in South Florida this afternoon to play the Panthers (530PM MT, RSN West) and see if they can keep things rolling.

In my Thru 30 post yesterday, I went on a bit about the non-performance of the Flames' "depth players". See also MetroGnome yesterday:
...consider the Flames RW depth:

Iginla - 16-22-38 +7
Nolan - 5-4-9 0
Moss - 1-5-6 -3
Godard - 1-0-1 -1

Aack. It appears, improbably, that if the Flames were to entice Tony Amonte back from homebuilding in Mass., he might be their 2nd-best RW. I didn't have terribly high hopes for Nolan (or Moss for that matter) before the season, but this is awful.

However, since I am a glass-half-full kinda guy, let me take a moment to express my admiration for just how G-D good Jarome Iginla has been this season. The numbers are great -- he is at or very near the top of the conference in virtually every offensive category -- but he is also just a lot of fun to watch, and have on my team. Good things happen when he's on the ice.

There's a little vignette from the Hawks game on Sunday that will remain with me for a while, and typifies the kind of season (and career, really) Jarome is having. There's about 7 minutes left in the game, and the Flames have just gone up 2-1. Puck is in the Hawks corner, and he beats Patrick Sharp to it, but only barely: with no time to establish position, he gets knocked partway down. Thing is, he kept possession between his knees; he then stood up with the puck between his skates, initiated contact with Sharp (knocking him back maybe 6 inches), then turned his body and took a stride toward the net.

In that fraction of a second while Sharp (who bear in mind is a good defensive player) was regaining his footing, he lost position on Iginla and took a holding penalty to prevent a good scoring chance. The Flames then scored an insurance goal on the PP, which of course it turns out they needed.

Someday Jarome will go the way of Owen Nolan and Tony Amonte, but considering the level he's at now, it looks like he's got a lot of good years left.

Calgary 2 (Iginla, Nilson)
Florida 1 (Roly P'Olli Jo-lli)

Go Flames.

Comments:

Nilson!? Gotten over your disillusionment with that guy? Or are you just throwing darts?
 


Aw, MG, be nice. You remember Nilson!
 


"Roli Poli J'Oli"......someone has young children!...I've got the treehouse symbol burned into my plasma TV.
 


Langkow with a great assist.
 


Matt, you nailed the score and the scorers (pretty much). Does anybody else feel like this is the first shoot out we've EVER won? Finally WE steal some points.
 


I liked the comment on the Amonte link where it said he was old and underpreforming, which is why we didn't resign him.

When has old and underpreforming ever stopped Sutter? Heck, I'd put good money down that says if Amonte signed with San Jose, we'd have him before the trade deadline.
 

Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?