saneopinion

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Canada, AB • Canada •

All the...Small Things...

Last nights loss was about small things. How many times have you heard Don Cherry say, "Get your sticks outta the way there!!" when talking about defending shots? It's beaten into player from an early age, let the goalie see the shot and take the body. On the winning goal Ian White got burned AGAIN after tipping a pretty harmless shot. He stuck his stick out, the puck deflected and Karlsson actually made a very good reflex toe save on it however White was belly sliding to catch up to the player he let go by him and it was an easy goal.

White has had moments of being really poor. This was a glaring example of it. He made the first mistake by sticking his stick into the shooting lane and the second mistake by letting a player blow by him. Eberle has exposed White a couple times and he got exposed again last night. For the record he was a minus two.

On the season you can't help but criticize Iginla at this point. I don't think he's not trying or giving effort but he is definitely not as effective as he's needed to be. Often he is a liability defensively as much as he is productive offensively, his minus 1 and 7 points show that he is not being the team guy they need him to be in leading the way. Additionally his blown chances are starting to pile up, there was a time where Jarome in the slot was unstoppable however it seems if he gets a goal now it's lucky.

Karlsson probably wasn't as good as he can be, he is now very aware of how fast that puck can be passed in the NHL and you better be ready. He did make some good saves so I'm not going to crack on him but what those 6 goals do show is maybe how the team has played lately, when you don't have a world class goalie in net it gets harder. Simply put if Kipper isn't bailing them out then you have a very mediocre team defensiely in front of the Goalie.

On the plus side if you told me that the Flames would score 5 goals and lose I would have bet against it. The goals scoring is coming and that at least is something positive, i'm hoping for a balance soon though. Along with that a 6-5 game where leads change and get tied up again is very exciting to watch and good entertainment so it's hard to say that i didn't enjoy it. If the Flames won 6-5 I would have REALLY liked it!

S>O>

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