Monday, January 18, 2010

monday randoms: we're in deep S@*%

i hope everybody's had a good week, even though the flames haven't notched a win since last week's monday randoms. ugh. i've been miss domestic: baked cookies and muffins and made good use of my crock pot. ;) here's some other erratic and mostly mundane thoughts rolling around my head:

- first off: there's no two ways around it ---harvey the hound is the best arena mascot in the league (sorry, youppi ----ps: this link is one of my alltime favorites and sometimes i think i talk about harv just to put it up).... ;) harvey 's got more outfits than beyonce and i seriously i have no idea how a person can wear twenty pounds of faux-fur, and an oversized dog head, and still do this:


- thinking about all the back-patting that ken king did about darryl sutter's drafting abilities has pretty much irked me for four days. on thursday, i was annoyed about the two times during the fan forum that they boasted about how full the prospect cupboard is, considering that darryl's highest draft pick with the flames was tenth overall (even though dion was selected ninth in 2003). one would presume that if the president and GM of a profesional club were gonna gloat about something, they'd want to get it right... but i digress.... it occurs to me now that the 2003 nhl entry draft was kindof akin to shooting fish in a barrel; as long as the flames chose to hang on to a first round selection that year, the odds were good that the guy would be a big-leaguer. so congrats, i guess.... as commenter smellofvictory pointed out over on the gamethread at m&g: "good thing calgary drafted phaneuf over [getzlaf], eh ?".... while dion looked like a slamdunk in 2006 after his rookie year, later first rounders like mike richards, jeff carter, and brent seabrook look far sharper these days.....

so when the flames' brass talk about their wicked scouting/drafting skills, i gotta say that ---dion aside (and realistically, not even that guy most nights these days), none of darryl's selected first rounders (including chucko, pelech, irving, backlund, nemisz, or erixon) look like team-changers at this point. admittedly, it's mighty early on those last three.... so we can still hope, i guess.... i will also concede that he may have drafted some later round gems (tbd) in guys like pardy, prust, boyd, aulie, wahl, howse, brodie, and ortio.... also ? bummer about john armstrong's injuries, dan ryder's troubles and mickey renaud (full stop). those guys all looked so promiseful.... le sigh.

another thing that occurred to me today is that darryl always drafts a first rounder. i gotta say that i find it kindof unrealistic to think that he's going to go into draft day, come june, and select two third rounders, and one player each in the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh rounds. no way does that happen. in some way, daz will make a deal and i'll be shocked if he doesn't turn up AT LEAST a second round pick or a conditional first.

- the game sucked last night but... um... how good was THIS:



- remember last march when the team's fourth line was: vandermeer - peters - roy ? WHEW !!! okay, i feel a whole lot better, allofasudden.... ;)

- all talk of the flames needing a top-line winger was put aside last night after an admittedly poor showing by backelhinney. i've been standing up for that dude all season but yesterday, i had to concede that the couple of stinkers he let in probably lost the C's the game.... names in the loop included biron, irv & crazy manny, but i say (for entertainment's sake at LEAST) let's get pechursky and promise that we'll spell his name right on the back of his jersey...

- with xmas now finished (and on to valentines day with some immediacy, according to what's going on at the mall), now is a good time to stock up on your canucks merchandise. not interested ? hmmm... neither is anyone else, it seems:


- in saying that, i know it's probably time to take my tree down... but it looks so MONEY with my chris drury bobblehead tree-topper !!! the bobblehead option was justin pogge (i honestly have one --it's a collector's edition which i recently dropped on the floor) but the drury one is far lighter in weight and is therefore much more stable on the top of my fake pine.

no point, really (just sharing). :)












- i got a text this morning from the dude who flies an enormous flames' flag from a 50-foot pole outside his house in silver springs (and at half mast after blowouts or playoff losses). it said something like "rough loss last night, but at least tonight's bounce-back game should be easy !"

ahhhhhhh...... we're in deep s&%#.

6 comments:

mikeH said...

Are you sure that's how you spell "shit" in extended characters? I probably would have gone with s&%*, but to each his own. :)

Can't say I disagree, at some point playing well but not winning wears a little thin. And playing SJ on the road doesn't sound like a recipe for adding one to the W column.

Very sad to see Qmac looking like he's going to the wrong direction. Corey Perry is a dirtbag, but I'm not sure that's a good excuse. Maybe that Ortio kid should fly out to hang with noodles and kip can translate.

Even still, Go Flames!

p.s. did we send our road organist to San Jose? I noticed them playing "Ring of Fire" in the first period last night at the pond, so I figured we must have the whole entertainment team on the plane.

p.p.s. Gio's breakaway goal rocked! 20 points and counting...

Anonymous said...

Didn't even have to watch the video to know it's the Gio breakaway goal. That was absolutely stellar. =D The way he's playing makes me feel a lot better about the prospect of trading a D or two away for better forward depth and Sutter fixing some of his gaffes.

-SmellOfVictory

walkinvisible said...

the way i think about it, the vyable defensive prospects (in descending age order) are:

[kronwall]
[johnson]
pelech
seabrook
deilert
negrin
aulie
brodie
erixon

at the rate of 0.5 defensemen being promoted/year (phaneuf '05, giordano'07, pardy '09), we can reasonably deal more than half of those dudes.... it's just.... uh... which half ? we sent ryan wilson to the avs last year and, although he was doing nothing on the farm, he's a halfway decent 3rd pairing nhl'er in colorado.

Anonymous said...

I'd honestly want to hold onto the majority of the prospects we've got defensively, and trade whichever one or two has the highest value as well as Sarich, or possibly Regehr. I know most people love Regehr, and he is a good D-man, but I get the feeling he's going to be on the downslope rather than bouncing back next year (gut feelings - the only way to judge sports!).

-SmellOfVictory

Brent G. said...

I would almost put money on Phaneuf being traded to a some team in the Eastern conference (i.e. NYI) in order to acquire that 1st round draft pick. It would be phaneuf for 1st and player or prospect.

Sarich may get them a 2nd rounder at best. From there I would also bet Negrin or Pelech fill his spot in the defensive line up.

Anonymous said...

I live by that guy!