flames v. tom rowe's team: can't wait !!!!!!

before looking ahead, let's just glance in the rearview for a moment, shall we ?

first off, bummer about the kostopoulos hit on stuart ----for a couple of reasons:

1. i don't like seeing headshots, no matter who is giving or receiving them. awful.
2. i can't deny that the replay of last night's hit looks vindictive and purposeful.
3. the greek/the jackman were really lighting it up and that's over for a week or so.
4. it's way harder to detest brad stuart when he's bleeding.

the other interesting gamenote from last night is that the flames looked a HELLUVA lot better without kotalik in the lineup. like, stunningly better. i don't know if you can wholely point the turnaround to #26's absence, but..... wow. the team looked interested in being there, and invested in working together. too bad kippy didn't get the "let's show up tonight" memo, or the flames would've gotten that second point.

someone on twitter yesterday wrote "the flames have one bad period and lose, while the wings have one bad period and win." such is the state of affairs in the nhl these days. calgary actually shows up to play and can't effin' BUY a win ----no help, of course, that jokinen is still the league's official tester of crossbar and post structural integrity. what used to be a joke is now facepalm city... *ugh.

looking forward, the flames have the superskills competition tomorrow and i only bring it up because of something interesting mark giordano said on the fan960 between periods last night. he said he was looking forward to seeing how hard babchuk's slapper is, but he also said he thought that adam pardy might give glenX some competition in fastest skater.... ? hm. i never realized A-pardz was that fleet-footed... ;)


next game up for the flambés is in raleigh, where they'll take on one of my favorite EC teams in the carolina hurricanes. sure, i'm a fan of eric staal and cam ward, i like what jim rutherford did last trade deadline (firesale on vets to competetive teams for draft picks and prospects), and i'm curious to see what ian white is up to, but the REAL reason i heart the 'canes is cause paul maurice and tom rowe are two of the raddest dudes on the face of the planet, hands down.

without going into detail, when i was introduced to tom rowe last year i thought i heard "john." "john, was it ?" i asked "no, tom. john's my middle name, though," he grinned, trying to not make me feel like an idiot.... i might've had a couple of pints by that point, so i decided it was cool to call him TJ. :) killer, right ? he didn't seem to mind much, infact inquired and subsequently addressed me by my real-life nickname with good humour, and we had a pretty excellent and lengthy conversation about hockey; the NHL, AHL, trades, players, skills, and (of course) gio, whom he coached in lowell. it was the first time i'd held court with real hockey people and i'm confident i held my own. it was a coup, being a girl and all... ;)

[ps: i'm a girl. i thought it was obvious with all the talk of wanting a ladies cut retro jersey and being pretty much in love with forsberg and wallin, but apparently some people *coughkingjaficough* thought i was just a weird little dude... but i digress... ;) ]

suffice it to say i hope that my team kills carolina on tuesday, but if they lose at least they're losing to a nice bunch of coaches.... it WOULD, however, be slick if gio could repeat the feat of dumping pitkanen into the bench (see below), to prove his physical prowess to his former coach and my bestie-for-an-hour, TJ. i bet eric staal will mind his pretty face a little better.... ;)

i'll be mostly watching to see if TJ has his troops target the sarich side of the ice, since that's the only real note i left him with last year. ;)

flames v. isles: what to drink ?

many a gamethread over at M&G has had the bloggers and commenters in deep discussion over the evening's booze of choice.

here's mine for gametime tonight :

fyi: it started out insanely bitter, but mellowed to fairly pleasant. :)

why i heart goad (even though he's my nemesis)

vancouver resident, die-hard canucks fan, and hitthepost BFF, goad, posted the following screengrab on his facebook today (much to my chagrin). one of his buddies commented in jest, "plan the parade." ;)


aaaand if that weren't enough to put a grin on the ol' mug, goad replied,

"Oh the route is already worked out. It starts in Hell that will have just frozen over, goes past your place, and ends in my wildest dreams. Same route as every year."

i love you, man.
xx

flames merch: UNO !!

i've decided to start a series on ridiculous flames merchandise, and i'm beginning with the age-old kids' game uno. really. REALLY. i mean, i guess the nhl retail thinktank just needs to come up with random items to stamp team logos onto in the name of profits, so why not this ?! everybody loves crazy eights, and i'm sure we could easily develop a drinking game for the name-brand mattel product with the same rules... and if you put players on the cards, it's that much better..... right ?

right.

except WHAT PLAYERS ??!?

if you look closely, that's back row l-r: marcus nilson, rhett warrener, dion phaneuf, matthew lombardi and front row l-r: roman hamrlik, david hale, & jeff friesen. © 2007. i wonder if there's an updated one with gio in it... ;) other players in the deck include langkow, huselius, tanguay 1.0, kipps, regehr, and conroy. in a smirky fun twist, it's reggie who appears on the "miss a turn" card (presumeably cause he's gonna make you sit your ass down).

and of course, you can't play uno without the all-important wild card, and who else would grace the flames version than our beloved iggy with vintage iggy playoff scruff and scoreface (and all neatly contained in a flames chevron-era away jersey box) ??


anyhow.
who wants to play ?
;)

new year's eve fun times

really good times with mikeH and my buddy B watching the flames beat the avs last night. as every new years, it was nice to see the crew in sec 201 and we gussied up in our fancy hats and drank some domebeers.

this guy was new to new years at the 'dome, and obviously new to domebeers: straws are for slurpees... nice frosted tips though, pal.


my single serving friend was a pretty funny dude with eagle eyes, and somehow spotted this across the rink:

i wonder if he had waffles.... he looks incredibly bored, i gotta say.

;)

my thoughts on feaster: stepping back

i don't have any formed opinions on flames "acting" gm jay feaster's CV and how it reflects upon the future of my favorite hockey team. i understand that his draft history is spotty except for some obvious slam dunks (who would surely have been selected by any literate human), and i'm aware that he's made some godawful trades. i know that he won a cup but wasn't really responsible for assembling the important winning players, and i know that he spent a long time managing a very successful AHL club. extrapolating these facts to how he's going to handle eleven no trade/no movement clauses, a boatload of lengthy contracts (some overpaid), an aging player corps, and a shallow pool of prospects seems pointless to me, at present. especially since he's not the guy in charge. he's the INTERIM guy in charge....

what i DID come to today, in my semi-hungover haze (after a pretty serious night of booze and laughs ---btw: fun times if you're reading this, teetotaling pals) is this:

it makes no sense that the org would sack darryl ---a guy who's been on his way out for eons--- without a backup plan in place. if feaster was brought in by the owners to replace darryl, then he would have been given the GM title on tuesday, non ? i mean, why keep the guy in indefinite GM limbo when he's already been walking the halls of the 'dome for five months ?? like.... what's the point in that ??

here's my take: feaster was brought in to oversee darryl, and to assure that he didn't make any rash/imbecilic moves before he was ushered out the door. feaster wasn't handed the title of GM outright because the org has earmarked someone else (who needs to concede his current position with another club before joining the flaming C's).

i came to this theory because i just can't get past why the executive/owners wouldn't hand feaster the reins entirely, unless there's something else at play, here. i can't comprehend the value in making the man plead his case a month after darryl's dismissal when he's been exposed to the team, it's players, and inner workings since the summer.... wouldn't his opinion on the club's desired direction have been made quite clear to the ownership by now, ESPECIALLY if they were the ones to bring him in ??!

methinks yes.
i guess we'll see....
:)

my thoughts on darryl's tenure, point form:

GENIUS darryl sutter moves:
- picking up kippy for a 2nd round pick (2004)
- picking up rene bourque for a 2nd round pick (2008)
- langkow for saprykin & gauthier
- turning an unhappy tanguay into mike cammalleri at the '08 draft
- letting theoren fleury play the '09 preseason ;)
- wearing the road tie

good darryl sutter moves:
- huselius for montador/johner
- re-signing gio
- leopold for ryan wilson/nycholat/2nd (albeit overpaying) cause we needed D badly
- seducing jaybouw (albeit overpaying)/trading leopold for his rights
- bringing in noodles as goalie coach/scout

bad darryl sutter moves:
- ference/kobasew for stuart/primeau
- jokinen/prust for kotalik/higgins
- 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 drafts (04/08/09 are actually not THAT bad, and selecting dion in 03 was like shooting fish in a barrell)
- letting huselius, cammalleri, and bertuzzi walk without actively replacing them with goalscorers
- telling mickis he should buy a house in calgary [regime change = buhbye, baby backlund...]
- building a team where 11 players have no trade/no movement clauses
- leaving the bench

REPREHENSIBLE darryl sutter moves:
- signing ference to a longterm "hometown discount" contract then trading him six months later
- re-upping primeau for 2 years at 1.4 mil per
- making ference pull his bags off the bus and leaving him at the rink in buffalo
- making jokinen and prust play v.philly after the kotalik/higgins deal had been leaked
- refusing giordano a one-way deal, signing anders eriksson 2 days later
- signing anders eriksson
- jokinen/3rd for lombo/prust/1st
- jokinen for 2 years at 3 mil per with a NTC
- andrei zyuzin
- cheaping ian white out of $5 so as to not sign him a 3 million dollar contract
- staios for johnson/3rd
- buying out a good-value contract in nigel dawes (15 goals, $850,000)
- signing raitis ivanans (1 game, 1.2 mil)
- not promoting rookies (dion/pardy notwithstanding)
- trading keith aulie
- not shopping dion phaneuf to all 29 teams

the move that should have led to darryl sutter's immediate dismissal (and didn't):
- miscalculating the cap (subbing jokinen's 5 mil for lombo's 1.8, leaving scarce room for injury replacement players), and being forced to ice a short bench to end the 08/09 season thereby falling out of first in the NW and thus facing (and losing to) chicago in the first round

am i missing anything ?

mikeH reminds me about the sutter(s) dismissal countdown, which started here on march 4, 2010 (but was alluded to here ---a harbinger of today's 'resignation'). tap out at day 299. booyah....

:)

so long, dazza. thanks for the jokinens....

"darryl stepped down because i asked him to."
--ken king, 12/28/10

....uhhhh.... then it's not really "stepping down," is it ?

just sayin'.
;)

[ten minutes into this presser, and i'm already kindof missing the smugness and 'quite honestly's.... ken king is a yawn]

Why Mikael Backlund will sit in the press box all season

I haven't been around these parts much for a couple of reasons. First, our team is losing. This makes it tough for me to get up any motivation to write. Second, I am dwelling in a pit filled with hate. Most of this is directed at Darryl and is probably justified, but I'd rather not pollute the Flames world with more calls to fire the GM. Well, "rather not" ends today.

In Sunday's paper there was a "feel good" story about Mikael Backlund, going on about how Mickis had his whole family in town for Christmas. I'm happy that the young swede was able to chow down on his mom's home cooking surrounded by his loved ones, but one part of the article left me fuming:

"Told to buy his own place this year, he moved into a new home in December..."

Really? Someone told Mickis to set down roots? To my eyes, this means that, realistically, no matter what happens, he is not going back to Abbotsford. You can't tell a player on an entry level deal to buy a home, incur the debt obligation, and then ship him back to the minors to slum it out in some rental condo with four teammates. Daz basically upgraded him to a one way deal with 6 words: “Go ahead, kid, buy a house.” And the blame HAS to be placed on the GM, adding another bullet point to the long list of Darryl mis-steps. All the NMC/NTC deals. The brain dead contract extensions. The bad trades. Picking up Olli Jokinen. Twice.

I can hardly type my hands are shaking so hard, and I hope to get through this piece without throwing my computer across the room. Backlund could be getting solid development minutes, while making $65,000 a year (capgeek), with no cap hit, but instead he's wearing a suit, munching popcorn, and warming a chair in the press box. What a total waste. Maybe up in the rafters of the 'dome is where Daz envisioned Staios' leadership making a difference.

So this is me begging now: Please fire Darryl. As soon as we possibly can. Every day that goes by he finds a way to push the team further from success. Some people have suggested that since we are already hogtied for the next season (because of Darryl), that there is no advantage to destabilizing the management at this point. I think this example with Backlund proves that an early intervention is required.

End venting session. That felt good, but it will feel better when we see some progress. And you know I'm still a fan...

Go Flames!

merry xmas !!!

sending all the best of holiday wishes to everyone out there.....
much love,
wi