Flames’ bad start mirrors last season
TOUGH TIMES: High hopes for good year starting to dwindle as Calgary sports only one win in six games
CALGARY — The Calgary Flames have just one win in six tries.
And that was supposedly the easy portion of their schedule. After five straight dates with other playoff pretenders from last season, Saturday’s 6-4 loss to the St. Louis Blues at the Saddledome marked the start of a three-week stretch against some of the NHL’s top contenders.
That includes Monday’s meeting with the Chicago Blackhawks in the Windy City, Tuesday’s rematch with the Blues in St. Louis and a home date next Sunday with the Washington Capitals. In between, the less-frightening Ottawa Senators on Friday.
As coach Glen Gulutzan’s struggling squad aims to rebound from a dreadful 1-4-1 start, here are burning questions for the week ahead:
Can they snap out of this?
You might feel like you stumbled into a time machine or somehow drifted back to last fall. The Flames are handing out Grade A scoring opportunities like Halloween treats. Again.
As a result, they rank among the NHL’s statistical cellar-dwellers in both goals against (4.33 per game) and team save percentage (.856). Again.
The specialty-teams stink, again, although the power play is now more offensive — not in a good way — than the penalty kill.
And they can’t seem to find a fit to skate alongside Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan on the top line. Yeah, again. (By our count, they’ve already tried six guys in that spot — regular right-wingers Troy Brouwer, Alex Chiasson, Michael Frolik and Kris Versteeg, plus Micheal Ferland and Matthew Tkachuk on their off wing.)
The Flames were 1-5-0 through six contests last season, so 1-4-1 is an oh-so-slight improvement, but they never really recovered.
Who’s the go-to goaltender?
Gulutzan insisted last week there is no goaltending controversy. At the very least, it’s a goaltending conundrum.
Brian Elliott and Chad Johnson have split the workload so far, three games apiece. Elliott is expected to be back between the pipes in Chicago, but there were some eyebrows raised when Johnson received the starting nod for Saturday’s showdown with the Blues, with the man they call ‘Moose’ serving as backup in his first meeting against his former team. There’s no doubt Johnson has been the better backstop so far, both by statistical evidence and the eye-test.
Elliott, to his credit, has refused to offer up excuses, although there are some reasonable ones. He and wife Amanda just welcomed their first child. He’s worked behind one of the NHL’s most stingy squads for the past five seasons, and his new team has been anything but air-tight.
What’s wrong with power play?
The power play has been pathetic. They’ve managed only one marker in 25 man-advantage opportunities so far, by far the NHL’s lowest success rate with an extra skater. Since Dennis Wideman’s power-play tally on opening night (a shot that was deflected by an Edmonton Oilers’ penalty-killer), they’re in an 0-for21 funk.
They’ve fiddled with their PP personnel, but it won’t matter if they continue to cough up pucks as they enter the zone and fail to generate enough chaos around the crease.
It’s worth noting that their next opponents, the Blackhawks, have the NHL’s worst penalty-kill stats this fall. They’ve surrendered a dozen power-play goals in 21 short-handed scenarios so far.
Parade to the penalty box?
The Flames have already been dinged for 38 penalties. Prior to Sunday’s games, that was tied for the highest total in the league.
Calgary’s count includes 37 minors and one fight. They’ve been short-handed more often — 31 times — than any other outfit.
And we’re not talking about punishment for being especially tough or truculent.
The Flames have been whistled nine times for hooking, seven times for holding/holding-the-stick and three for tripping. Generally, those calls come when a defender is scrambling or when a backchecker is cheating.
They’ve paid the price, too, surrendering eight power-play goals already.
Any good news to pass along?
The Flames’ farm club is off to a solid start, with the American Hockey League’s Stockton Heat posting a 2-0-1 record in three outings. Two of the Flames’ most fascinating forward prospects are leading the way offensively — Mark Jankowski has a goal and three helpers, while Andrew Mangiapane has been a point-per-game guy — and there’s a lot to like about Jon Gillies’ stats in the crease. He has a 1.64 goalsagainst average and .944 save percentage so far.
In the Western Hockey League, sixth-round pick Matthew Phillips has been on a tear for the Victoria Royals, with a half-dozen goals and seven assists.
Second-rounder Dillon Dube of the Kelowna Rockets centre was named last week to Team WHL for the 2016 Canada-Russia Series.