Flames need to seize control of the crease

Ramo gets the call on Tuesday against Capitals

The man selecting the tunes and in control of the record needle is growing weary of the round-andround.

“I’m sick and tired, to be honest with you,’’ grumped Bob Hartley, “of the musical chairs.’’

The outcast who isn’t even being allowed into the game insists he doesn’t think of himself as the geeky kid invited to the birthday party solely to bump up gift numbers.

“No, no,’’ laughed Joni Ortio, “I’m still part of the team. Obviously, I’d like to be in the lineup but it is’’ — yes, wait for it — “what it is. “I’ve just got to be patient. “If you’re trying to make it a problem, it’s going to be a problem. If you’re trying to work around it and get something out of it, I think it will work in your favour.

“So it’s all about your approach.’’

The flatlining Calgary Flames, in need of a shakeup, a wake- up, a touch- up, something or someone to galvanize them out of their lethargy, are playing it safe. Too safe.

Tuesday night against the Washington Capitals, they go back to Karri Ramo in goal.

The netminder mix- n- match for this unsettling 1- 4 start to the season has been, in chronological order, Ramo, Hiller, Hiller, Ramo, Hiller. So far neither — Ramo: 0- 2, 3.53 GAA, .904 save percentage; Hiller: 1- 2, 3.65, .872 — has been convincing.

Yet Ortio, for whatever reason( s), continues on as the foundling child left abandoned on the church steps in the dead of night.

Why on earth not take a fl yer on the guy?

It’s not as if his NHL resume is totally blank. Last season, midseason, remember, after being summoned from AHL Adirondack with Ramo injured, Ortio reeled off four wins in five starts, surrendering only five goals over those four W’s, all against division rivals.

He’s here. Available. Only too happy to be put to work. But, no. “Right now,’’ said Hartley by way of explanation, “we’re looking for one of those two top guys to … one of them has to make a statement somewhere.

“It’s plain and simple. You play OK as goalies, it’s not good enough. We’ve been singing the same tune for only a short time, but it’s time.

“Those guys have been good for us last year, they’ve been great.

“Being OK is just not good enough.’’

But OK, so far, is no more or no less than they’ve been receiving.

Those wary of an Ortio sighting will argue he’s hasn’t played a meaningful NHL game since Peter Liske was quarterbacking the Stampeders ( or at least it seems that way), and to insert him now at such a delicate point in the early going wouldn’t be fair to either him or the team.

But if Plan A isn’t up to snuff and Plan B isn’t working to your satisfaction, either, why even have a Plan C so close by if you’re unwilling to use it? Mystifying, quite honestly. “I can buy that thinking mode,’’ said Hartley. “But at the same time, I’m a patient man and a very loyal guy. Rams and Hills have been very good for us. Very, very good. And my job right now is to get them going.

“Jordan is working with them, talking to them. They’re two unbelievable guys. And nothing against Orts. Orts is a great guy, too. But to mix a third goalie into the equation … not right now.’’

Makes you wonder what’s up with Ortio, anyway?

A particularly foul case of halitosis? Leprosy?

Or are there other, higher- up mechanisms at work here?

Goaltending coach Jordan Sigalet is trying to make the best of an untenable situation.

“My job right now is keeping those guys confi dent,’’ he said Monday. “Right now it’s one guy in, one guy out. I don’t think we’ve found our game as a team yet.

“You look at games we were successful in last year and we were giving up 7- 8- 9 scoring chances now they’re up in the 15- 16- 17 range.

“It’s never easy, but you have to battle through it. You just want one of those guys to come out and steal you a game, stand on his head.

“They’re pushing each other, pushing each other, in practice. They don’t want to give up goals.

“You want to get a guy on a roll, on a hot streak, and start riding him.’’

The three- goalie set- up was always shaping up as a Tylenol 3 head- splitter — the Flames themselves keep admitting as much — but with neither of the two frontrunners performing up to snuff it can develop into an outright distraction.

“Well, not so good,’’ replied Ramo when asked to assess his own play so far.

“There’s no wins. Wins are what matters. It doesn’t matter how well or bad you do, to win is what counts.

“The key is not to get frustrated. Tomorrow’s a new game, a new chance for everybody to do the right things. We are digging ourselves a hole and we can’t make it any bigger.

“Coaches are the ones who make the decisions and our job is to try and be The Guy, the one who plays. Here, there are a lot of good goalies. Obviously, the coaches would wish our fi rst powerplay would score every time they hop on the ice, and they expect it to happen. But obviously it doesn’t happen. They always want the goalie to shut the other team down every time but that’s not going to happen, either.

“That’s just hockey. Nobody’s perfect all the time. We’re not going to win any games alone. We’re not going to lose any games alone.”

But that’s precisely what these Flames need.

Some masked man to step in, step up, and swipe two points out from under Ovechkin’s nose, or Zetterberg’s.

“Obviously, you want to play games,’’ said Ortio. “That’s the bottom line. But there’s only one net and there’s three of us.

“To me, it’s simple: I’ve got to put in my work, day in and day out and wait for my opportunity.

“Sometime, yeah. Yeah, absolutely I have to play. But we don’t know how long this kind of arrangement is going to go on. As long as it is, we just gotta make the best of it.’’

Tuesday, they turn back to Karri Ramo in time of need.

Hoping he can turn night into day, unease into hope. If not … Well, re- arrange the chairs, start the music all over again. And, for the sake of all concerned, at least, at long last, let the abandoned foundling, the outsider kid at the party, into the game.