I don’t know, I guess somewhere along the way we started having expectations.
No matter who you are, how long you’ve sojourned in Gaia’s garden, or how long you’ve endured the malaise of Flames fandom, it’s been a near-universal truth for the majority of your personal investment: the Calgary Flames are not very good. Maybe you remember the Young Guns era of the late ’90s. Sure, that gave us our first glimpse of an unassailable Ol’ Blasty, but beyond that, any non-Jarome Iginla highlight usually involved a guy who could barely skate punching a fan or a guy who could barely skate try to end Peter Forsberg’s career.
If you’re reading this, there’s a very good chance you have slumped in your couch, flipped on your plasma TV, endured countless Pizza 73 commercials, and wondered why you faithfully grasped the faint hope that Eric Nystrom or Dustin Boyd would do something exciting. That maybe THIS Olli Jokinen trade will bring some real value to the Flames.
We had two years of Mike Smith! How are any of us still here?
Perhaps we thought Calgary was flirting with leaving those days behind. Finishing second overall in the entire league during the last real NHL season will do that to you. But even then, didn’t that embarrassing first-round loss to Colorado feel a little TOO familiar?
All of this is to say that stretches like this, large swaths of time where absolutely everything goes wrong for the Flames is far from out of order, but something about being this unhinged during this specific period in time makes it really disappointing. This team had potential, man.
But haven’t they always? The Flames had Jarome Iginla for 17 blissful seasons, many of which you would be hard-pressed to name a player in the world finer than our captain. Yet those teams only won three playoff series during that time, and all of those came in the same year. When did we start to believe in things?
Yes, this iteration of the Calgary Flames is more talented than the output we’re seeing from them. There are skilled players up and down this roster, and stretches like these balance out over the long run. But this is Calgary. I’m not here to tell you to abandon all hope, but that’s mostly because I’m gobsmacked that you still have any.
Hey, aren’t we off to a great start here???
The Week of: February 15th-21st
Results From Past Week: The Flames kicked this week off with a win! Do you remember that? Can you tell me about it?
(…)
Okay, I did some research and the Flames allegedly captured two points with a 4-3 overtime win over the Vancouver Canucks. They played three other games and we all learned that losing builds character.
So does drinking.
Flames Overall Record: 8-9-1, 17 pts
Standings: 5th place in the North Division. This rules. The Flames spend all week getting their dicks kicked in and somehow don’t drop in the standings at all. The caveat here being that as of this writing, the Canucks are still in the middle of a game with the Winnipeg Jets, and if they win, they’ll jump over Calgary, bumping the Flames down into 6th. But there are 3 minutes left in regulation, they’re losing, and even if they do pull it out, it’s still really funny that the Flames had an alarmingly bad week, lost to the Canucks, and Vancouver only barely jumps past them. Maybe. Best division ever.
Soundtrack: A Colossal Wreck - Every Time I Die
ETID is tailor-made for the Calgary Flames, because they also have a song called AWOL, and,
What We Liked: Although the results from the game won’t back this up, Glenn Gawdin crawling his way onto the game sheet was an encouraging sign. Not that I am necessarily convinced we have a diamond in the rough or a bona fide NHLer here, but we’ve commiserated all year over the lack of depth, and how an injury or two could really expose this team, given that there are no real solutions on the taxi squad.
There are few players in the minors right now who feel like they should be challenging for a spot with the big club, but Gawdin is one of them. Matthew Phillips is another. Our spritely young son is going to get his opportunity sooner rather than later, and then I can stop going on and on about how Phillips and Andrew Mangiapane are remarkably similar players (beyond their identical draft profile and the whole being three apples tall thing), so we all win there. Again, I don’t know for sure that Matthew Phillips projects to be an NHLer (he does, he absolutely does), or that his presence moves the needle in terms of wins and points in the standings (he will score 50 goals this season if you call him up right now), but I do know that the alternatives are Buddy Robinson and Byron Froese. Give the kids a chance. That’s worked out pretty well over the past few years.
Hello to David Rittich. The Flames can’t get him a win, but Dominik Hasek would twist his spine in a pretzel trying to save this team of late. BSD had only started two games prior to this week, and somehow “Rittich’s struggles” became something of a B plot storyline, which is insane. The entire team is a toilet right now, so it didn’t matter, but he played very well this week, and I’m happy to see him show that he still knows what he’s doing in front of that cage.
What We Would Prefer Not To See: Whether you believe Jacob Markstrom is overworked and fatigued, or that he was trying to spark his listless team, charging the opposition at the faceoff dots is insane, and I truly hope that’s over. It’s never a good sign when your expensive new goalie is trying out bits. It’s bad goaltending, it’s dangerous, and he’s too good and too important to hurl himself into situations like that.
The good news is it clearly didn’t work, so hopefully we’ve seen the end of Markstrom’s improv skills. You’re good-looking Jacob, people are going to think you’re funny by default!
Also everything else this week was brutal. Don’t think I forgot about that.
Enemy of the Week: Was it Gautama Buddha, or was it the band Lit who said “It’s no surprise to me, I am my own worst enemy, ‘cause every now and then I kick the living shit out of me”? No one - short of maybe Connor McDavid - hurt the Flames more than themselves, and I don’t really want to give McDavid any press unless he has a body part that’s exploding again. But we need a face, an avatar to pin all these self-destructive habits the Flames have picked up of late, and I’m just going to go ahead and ascribe that to anthem singer George Canyon. Anyone have a problem with that?
What Happens Next/We Were Right:
Last week’s prediction:
[Connor McDavid] will presumably move so fast on a rush up ice that the blades on his skates melt, causing him to lurch forward and rocket himself through the boards and into the zamboni, where he will be steamrolled, the liquids in his body used to flood the ice between periods. Oilers fans will blame it on, I don’t know, Nikita Nesterov and demand he be extradited back to Russia.
Honestly, this wasn’t that far off.
At long last, your Calgary Flames are given the luxury that every other team in the division has enjoyed thus far: games against the Ottawa Senators. After some outcomes of late that have left the team licking its wounds, a tilt against the league’s bottom feeders could be a delightful respite.
Anyway, the Sens have recent wins over both Toronto and Montreal, and no one is playing worse than Calgary, so maybe this is the week we learn what rock bottom is.
The entirety of this Big Monday Thing has been flirting with total existentialism, so maybe let’s try to restore some balance with a positive prediction? I don’t have any particular benchmarks to look for here, I just have a sense that Dillon Dube is going to go off this week. He’s had a rough go of it this season, and we know he’s better than the sum of his results. Look to him to narrow that gap. Even if he cut his hair. No one approved of that, Dillon.
Scorchstack Writer dropping truths on Sportsnet of the week:
A new legend appears on Overtime, and his name is Mike Pfeil.
Unrelated Fact:
According to legend, James Gandolfini would put a small stone in his shoes while filming scenes on The Sopranos, because it made him mad and that would make him appear more authentic.
Imagine being angry over a Stone you just can’t ever seem to get rid of.
See You Next Week:
This was my favourite. Thank you Matty Franchise.
Free Ramz.