the craig conroy blues

here's the thing.

pretty much the entire month of october, i bitched and whined about conroy being on the first line... well, at some point in november, he moved down to the second line and i was relatively quiet about his play --presumeably because i spend the majority of the month on another continent.

what i've noticed in the past couple of games is that conroy is a stalwart as the team's #2 centre, and (if you ask me) his play DEMANDS that he be demoted to the third line (at LEAST). and i'm not even talking about the god-awful incident that led to elias' overtime winner. i'm talking about his consistant inconsistancy. sure, the guy might be slightly better than average at winning faceoffs, but currently has little to no other redeemable qualities. still, night after night, he ends up on the ice far more than a slumping player of his calibre should be.

there are seven centres on the flames gameday roster, though (obviously) three of them are starting on the wings. currently, our second line is tanguay/conroy/boyd, our third line is nystrom/lombardi/nilson, and our fourth line is primeau/yelle/smith. if you ask me, something is totally wrong here... i've said it once and i'll say it again (slightly louder, and slower for emphasis): lombardi needs some linemates that can keep up to him. and i could easily say the same about tanguay. kudos to boyd for having a helluva game (even after getting rudely dumped in the 2nd period), but i saw an opportunity or two where they probably would have passed to the centreman, had there been one anywhere in the vicinity...

craig conroy spent the better part of the first 20 games on the first line, but in the first 36 games, he's only managed to garner 14 points. [MG covered this a few weeks ago in the infamous STONEHANDS post]. it seems ridiculously obvious to me (especially after tonight's game) that lombardi should be centering tanguay and boyd, because having conroy on that line seems to be a pure waste of otherwise talented players...

not that i have anything against nystrom, mind you....

what i'd like to see is as follows:

huselius/langkow/iginla
tanguay/lombardi/boyd
nystrom/conroy/ ?????
primeau/yelle/nilson

the empty spot can be as easily filled by owen nolan, mark smith or david moss --i don't care.

on the upside, the flames looked solid in the first sixty minutes, and by this i mean ALL THE FLAMES --including eriksson, hale and (yes) even conroy. the devils played an interesting version of the old trap, whereby every decent flames scoring opportunity was stymied by a mess of white shirts infront of brodeur. shots on metal, blown tires, great saves, and fanned attemps were also at premium tonight by the hometowners.... the score probably should not have been as close.

merry xmas to you all, and REMEMBER THAT THE NEXT GAME IS DECEMBER 27, FLAMES V. CANUCKS, 8PM: MEETUP AT THE KILKENNY IN BRENTWOOD...

:)