The Big Monday Thing - Settle In For A Long Olympic Break
I am tapping my finger to my ear, as I have an update on the title for this week
Comedians did not sign up to be your hero. It’s our job to be irreverent and dangerous, to question authority and take you through a spooky mental haunted house so you can arrive at your own conclusions. Stay focused on the people we pay taxes to to be moral leaders.
That’s just something I came up with off the top of my head, I’m a bit of a free thinker.
The Week of: January 31st-February 6th
Results From Past Week: The 2014-15 Calgary Flames made an appearance this week, embodying your standard-issue Flames and overcoming a 3-1 deficit against Dallas to earn a win (largely thanks to a late-game team highlight-reel goal from Oliver Kylington), before doing the exact same thing to the Arizona Coyotes that life does every day: burying them.
Johnny Gaudreau went to the All-Star Game! You tell me how that went because I have no idea.
Flames Overall Record: 23-13-6, 52 pts
Standings: 4th place in the Pacific Division, 8th in the Western Conference. Treading water is hard when you’re a Flame. Sorry about that line.
Soundtrack: Corona - Minutemen
Whenever Jackass is back in the zeitgeist, I can’t help but go through a Minutemen phase. I’m amazed the popularity of Jackass hasn’t given the band a resurgence in the 21st Century, but it really should.
What We Liked:
I’m fully aware that Chris Tanev deserves a lot of credit for being a Defenseman Whisperer in Calgary, but I think Oliver Kylington rightfully warrants some love from fans of this team, because just on his own I think he’s been pretty, pretty good.
All of us here at the Scorchstack have been on record in the past of saying that Kylington deserved more chances than he was receiving before this season, but conceded he might be a 5-6 defenseman at best. (ed. note: We did say in our season preview that we believe in him to have a breakout season though, so again Scorchstack had it first) The reason, we concluded, that he should have been getting ice time was more because of the negative value contributions of Michael Stone or Nikita Nesterov, and less from Kylington on his own merit, although we also did toss out the possibility of throwing him on 4LW to get him some more time although again: more negative value contribution reasoning. This year, he’s taking us all for a ride by playing like a top-tier defenseman. In all likelihood, he’s somewhere in the middle.
Which is great. If a 5th-year player can be your middle pairing guy and feature heavily on the power play, that’s a very valuable player to have. He’s really fun to watch, never afraid to gain the offensive zone on his own or jump in on a rush to give the defense more options to contend with. Oliver provides a skill this team needs from a position that is desperately calling for it.
Kylington’s winning goal against Dallas on Tuesday was a metaphor for his entire season, and hopefully, this is just the beginning.
What We Would Prefer Not To See:
We really dove into this a bit more vociferously last week, so I won’t belabour this point too much more, especially given that this team has won three in a row, but you really do not want to burn Jacob Markström out. Dan Vladař was wonderful in relief of Markström in the comeback Dallas win and felt like a natural choice to start on the latter part of a back-to-back game with the dismal Coyotes. This also all but dismisses any nagging itch we might have had that Vladař was secretly battling an injury, so there really aren’t any excuses at all anymore. The Flames don’t really get an extended would-be Olympics break here, February is pretty crammed schedule-wise, and Markström is way too important of an asset for a team that wants to be successful. You need to keep him healthy and rested.
This feels obvious to me, it’s all really kinda baffling that we’re talking about this two weeks in a row. But here we are. Don’t do it!
Enemy of the Week:
Going to get ahead of the trend here and say the enemy of the week is Matthew Tkachuk. The Flames play the Maple Leafs in a matter of days here, and I think this is a theme you’re going to be forced to listen to more than a little bit until game day. I’m just getting everyone prepared for it now.
This all stems from last season when they alleged our beautiful little perfect angel tried to maim the Leafs great-guy-goalie-who-also-loves-Chris-Kyle-and-wearing-the-Punisher-logo-but-we’re-all-supposed-to-ignore-that-part Jack Campbell, and I guess that’s just the kind of thing they’re always going to believe.
Should be fun.
What Comes Next:
Get used to Mountain Time, everyone, it’s time for a seven-game homestand. These are all, of course, making up for all the postponed matchups back in December that some kind of global pandemic that I’ve never heard of forced the team to reschedule. So instead of getting to chill in Mexico for a week or plow the fields at a Sutter ranch uninterrupted, the Flames have to prepare for a couple of real tough opponents in Vegas and Toronto. And also the New York Islanders.
The way this season is going, the New York game is going to be the only one they lose.
Jon Hamm Thing of the Week:
Everyone is really mad at Hollywood actor Jon Hamm. It’s a pretty big deal, and we all know why, we all saw or heard what he did or didn’t do or whatever, I don’t need to bring it up, you all know about it.
I’m so mad about the thing Jon Hamm did. Is it the Skip The Dishes commercials? I’m kidding. I know it’s the other thing. I saw it too. Or heard him do it or whatever.
Unrelated Fact:
I saw Jackass Forever on Sunday and for real it was flawless, and should maybe win Best Picture? Ehren McGhehey, you are a hero.
See You Next Week:
In what is admittedly a pretty great self-own, the Stockton Heat tweeted out last week that Matthew Phillips is now the team’s all-time leading goal scorer, at, uh, well, it’s 51 goals.
This is honestly a good thing, as since the Flames relocated their minor league affiliate to California (in 2015, the season after they foolishly tried to retire Scorch in Great Falls or whatever that forgettable ass town was called, ultimately discovering the futility in such an effort), they have been able to graduate their offensive stars up to the NHL level. This mostly just means Andrew Mangiapane and Dillon Dubé, but still, that’s Andrew Mangiapane and Dillon Dubé.
Matthew Phillips is the face of that franchise now, and that’s great, I guess, but it once again begs the question: why the hell isn’t this guy in the NHL yet? Bring him home, Bradley. I promise you this story ends well.