Fantasy Hockey - The Reckoning

[Sparrowhawk]

Originally posted by Asher
Part of me wants the team to get blown out

Couldn't agree with you more. A big part of me wants to see the Flames get blown out too



/me

[Asher]

Playfair just needs to go. He doesn't have the respect of the team, and why should he?

He yammers on constantly about "identity" instead of calling out people who need to step up. Sutter finally does it for him, and lo and behold, Ference and Warrener step up the next day. Playfair's too much of a nice guy and what they need is an ******* like Sutter to whip them into shape.

What's Brent Sutter up to?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Tingkai


Winning percentages? Interesting concept, but who keeps track of that?

The NHL does.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Flubber


Maybe nobody but lets put it this way-- If my team had played 3 or 4 or 5 more games than another team, I wouldn't really consider them to be 'ahead" of teams that were 1 or 2 points behind. Surely you can acknowledge the idea .

lets put it another way-- are you happier with a 4-1 team or a 5-5 team-- The 5-5 team is AHEAD in the standings after all

All I was doing was commenting on where the Leafs were on a given day of the season. I did not say that this made them better than Montreal or Pittsburgh. I was saying that a team in fourth is doing something right.

And even if Montreal won all three games in hand, and the Leafs were not playing, the Leafs would be in fifth place, which is still nothing to sneeze at and much better than what a lot of people were saying.

And would I be happier with the Montreal's 6-2-3 or Toronto's 7-4-3?

Maybe Montreal will win the three games in hand and look better than Toronto, or the Habs could lose all three games and look worse than Toronto. What's more likely is a split of the games.

The difference is marginal.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by notyoueither


The NHL does.

The only thing I've seen on the NHL is league wide winning percentages, which is okay, but it would be more interesting to see the stats by division and conference. If you have a link, let me know. Like I say, I think it's an interesting concept.

[Asher]

I was saying that a team in fourth is doing something right.

Yes, they were playing more games. Good on them for doing that.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Asher
Playfair just needs to go. He doesn't have the respect of the team, and why should he?

He yammers on constantly about "identity" instead of calling out people who need to step up. Sutter finally does it for him, and lo and behold, Ference and Warrener step up the next day. Playfair's too much of a nice guy and what they need is an ******* like Sutter to whip them into shape.

What's Brent Sutter up to?

The suckage does indeed continue and the comments about the record being the same as last year are wearing thin since the record is now demonstrably worse than last year.

Phaneuf will be great but he shouldn't have to be their best d-man almost every night already .. . and the offence sucks as usual its just that the defence/Kipper hasn't been able to bail them out since they are giving up 3 goals instead of 1. Tanguay in particular has been a disappointment but the lack of offensive production generally from the 3rd and 4th lines has been remarkeable

Last night they got 15 shots against Detroit. Thats nowhere near enough.

I still predict a playoff spot for the Flames

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Tingkai


All I was doing was commenting on where the Leafs were on a given day of the season. I did not say that this made them better than Montreal or Pittsburgh. I was saying that a team in fourth is doing something right.

And even if Montreal won all three games in hand, and the Leafs were not playing, the Leafs would be in fifth place, which is still nothing to sneeze at and much better than what a lot of people were saying.

And would I be happier with the Montreal's 6-2-3 or Toronto's 7-4-3?

Maybe Montreal will win the three games in hand and look better than Toronto, or the Habs could lose all three games and look worse than Toronto. What's more likely is a split of the games.

The difference is marginal.

Toronto has won their last two games and looked much better defensively doing it. That has obviously improved their standings and they are 5th on winning percentage now so the difference IS marginal ( but the difference was real two games ago) . I still have serious questions about their defensive abilities. Time will tell.

As for Toronto versus Montreal in the standings. . . I will ALWAYS prefer to be two points back with 3 games in hand .

On performance, both have looked good in their most recent outings. If Toronnto could stop looking like a minor league club when they paly the Sens, they MIGHT be worth believing in

[Asher]

Found this on a blog today...agree completely.

Playfair is out of his league.

There isn't a positive left to dwell upon. There doesn't seem to be a shred of life or dignity in the Flames dressing room right now. On the ice the team looks defeated and lost. On the bench, the coaching staff is grossly mismanaging the players, if only because they're desperate to find a solution.

Grossly mismanaging. There, I said it.

It started before the game. Playfair removed Jamie Lundmark from the line-up - one of the few centers that was actually winning draws and creating anything out there - and left a totally useless Darren McCarty in. The result? The Flames once again struggled in the face-off circle and McCarty did little more than take penalties.

During the contest, Matthew Lombardi, the second leading scorer on the team and top +/- player, played a mere 4 minutes at even strength over the first two periods. Four minutes! Meanwhile, Dustin Boyd was drawing shifts with Tanguay and Iginla. W! T! F! That's just plain goddamn DUMB. Unless you missed it, Jim, Friesen was the one who committed the turn-over that lead to the Wings first goal. Also, Lombardi's been one of your best players all year.

And, like Sutter before him, Playfair spent the entire evening fruitlessly juggling line combinations to no avail. Literally every shift there was a new trio of players. Ridiculous. Like a 40 second shift is enough to determine whether a given troika is going to mesh or not. ****.

Everywhere you look with the Flames there is ineptitude. The forecheck is flacid. The systems are bland and stagnant. The players almost never win puck battles. Stupid penalties abound each game (the Flames took 3 penalties in the last 10 minutes of the game last night while trailing- tripping, hooking, hooking). Even Kipper looks frustrated with this team. And he's a pretty stoic individual.

Im at a loss to explain it at this point. It could be the players have finally tuned out the defense-first philosophy of the current management regime. And, if that's true, there isn't a player demotion, promotion or trade that's going to right this ship.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Asher
Found this on a blog today...agree completely.

Playfair is out of his league.

I don't know that I totally blame Playfair. The players have to take some blame for their listless play and Sutter was the architect behind this team including picking up Tanguay.

This team was supposed to be slightly stronger than last year . .. young enough that a year didn't substantially worsen them and with an emerging Phaneuf and the addition of Tanguay . . So far it hasn't panned out.

I usually try not to judge too much on a couple of days but once a team is 3-7-1 it gets tough to consider it a "bad game". There next two stops are Columbus and St Louis and I don't want to say "must win" but there is a real need for them to start playing like a playoff team and part of that is to decisively defeat some of the weaker squads.

If they can manage two victories there, they then visit a very tough Dallas squad-- any points there would be a bonus-- Since they are 3-7-1, I confess that I would be pretty pleased if by next week they are 5-8-1. A record of 6-7-1 seems too much to hope and something like 3-10-1 would be too much to take

[Asher]

I think the team is built solidly. It's just that none of them are playing like they did last year.

The only difference I can see is the rookie coach.

[Kontiki]

There was way too many expectations with Tanguay. He's a very gifted player, but he's used to a run-and-gun offense playing with the likes of Sakic and Hejduk. I was skeptical of sticking him on a defense first team, especially when they were talking about having him play a different position - regardless of the fact he said he was fine with it.

[Asher]

Tanguay isn't the problem.

It's everything...everything is sucking. If the team doesn't suck, then we can judge how well he does.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Asher
I think the team is built solidly. It's just that none of them are playing like they did last year.

The only difference I can see is the rookie coach.

I believe Calgary is a better team than what they're showing right now, but you could debate how solidly they're built. When they were playing well last year, they were relying on very strong defensive play and all-universe goaltending to eek out low scoring one goal victories. On the surface, that seems like a recipe where if something goes wrong, your fortunes can turn fast.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Asher
Tanguay isn't the problem.

It's everything...everything is sucking. If the team doesn't suck, then we can judge how well he does.

I don't mean to suggest he is the problem, just that how valuable he'd be was greatly exagerated.