Monday, March 5, 2007

Flames v. blues: pregame

[i gotta do this tonight, cause i won't have time tomorrow...]

imagine, if you will, that someone actually paid attention to all the flames drivel you babble about every day. y’know: who’s playing well, who’s playing like shit, who needs a stern talking to, who needs a good ol’fashioned benching, who needs to get promoted, who needs to get fired ? well, jason likes the blues the way I like the flames. And so I’ve learned some stuff vicariously…

I should really leave the pre-game to him, but here’s what I (think i) know. his team would probably have been a playoff contender if they’d sacked mike kitchen earlier. on paper, I think they look pretty decent, with steady guys all over the place, like brewer,cajanek & weight. sure, legace’s still injured but sanford’s definitely holding his own (demonstrated by their 6-2-2 record in the last ten). as for the newbies, boyes scored a goal in his first outing as a blue (and I’m sure it will be the first of many), metropolit has an assist & is +1 after 3 games and niemenen is averaging 10 minutes out of 60. They look decent up front, they look tough on the blueline… clearly the system is working... and watch out for backes, I hear he’ll make us swear…

These guys have learned how to win, to be sure. They have shown themselves to be resilient, they can hold a lead, and can come back from a defecit. They’re tricky and talented. And while everyone’s been talking about how Edmonton was a contender up until about a week and a half ago, nobody seems to notice that the early-season laughing stock that were the blues, are currently tied with the greasers with 15 games to go… or that they’ve picked up at least a point in every outing save for 4 since the end of January…

This will be the first of two games against the boys from the "show me" state over the next week (the second one will be attended with much fanfare by both Jason and myself back home in mootown). I would imagine the home team will take each matchup, meaning duncan will once again be rightly reminding us that things are not OK.

which, simply put, means tonight the flames are gonna look like a bunch of hacks again. we lose 3-1: goals by weight, stempniak, dvorak & langkow.

7 comments:

MacS said...

You are REALLY early with the pregame!

walkinvisible said...

had to. busy day today... :)

HG said...

Fastest pre-game in the East.

Kent W. said...

Geez, you're even more pessimistic than I am.

Steal Thunder said...

I probably should have done my pregame last night as well, as I seem to be having trouble posting them from work as of late...

And mine will probably be a little pessimistic as well, but probably not quite as much...

Its too bad I don't have centre ice yet, or I'd just tape it on my PVR. As it is, my digital recorder can't help the boys tonight...

walkinvisible said...

my pessimism has historically turned out well for the boys. that is, of course, as long as madmac isn't high on something and guaranteeing wins all over the place... jason's calling for a tight one...

Anonymous said...

... duncan will once again be rightly reminding us that things are not OK

It's what I do best. If they ever start winning on the road, my blog will be screwed.