Wild times in Flameland

January 18th, 2010. The Flames lose 9-1 to the San Jose Sharks in the midst of a streak that would inevitably crush any playoff aspirations they had last season.

January 19th, 2011. The Flames are embarrassed, 6-0, on home ice by the Minnesota Wild, crushing all hope that had been slowly building up over the past two weeks.

Deja-vu?

Hold the phone. The Wild did this to the Flames? The 3rd lowest scoring team in the Western Conference just gave Calgary the ol’ “how’s your father?” Yikes. It doesn’t get much worse.

Surrendering 11 goals in two games is never a good thing either.

Kipper can’t stop a beach ball, which is adds to growing list of problems this team has. He used to be the one constant.

“Well at least we have Kipper,” the average fan might ponder. Well, right now, mired in one the biggest slumps of his career, Flames fans can’t even say that.

I didn’t see the game so I can’t comment on the ins and outs of the game itself, but I think the result pretty well speaks for itself.

What happened to the days where the Wild were the Flames whipping boy? The Flames are now 3-7-2 against the Wild these past two seasons. A stark contrast to the days of old where the Flames were 27-8-2 against them between the 04-05 and 08-09 seasons. It would seem as if Minnesota figured something out.

Calgary is now 7-8 in their division. They sit 12th in the West in goals allowed.

Whatever hope fans may have had coming into this game might be entirely gone now. The Flames are now eight points back of a spot with back-to-back games against the Dallas Stars(5th in the league) and Vancouver Canucks (1st in the NHL).

It doesn’t look good. I can see the rats leaving the ship from here.

OTHER NEWS

I came across this article today in the Globe and Mail about how George McPhee, the GM of the Caps, approached Darryl Sutter in November asking about Robyn Regehr. They were offering Tomas Fleischmann in return.

The trade, as it states in the article, would have saved the Flames money and added a unique scoring presence up front.

We all know that Fleischmann went to Colorado where he has been playing quite well and Scott Hannan went the other way.

There was a time when Hannan and Regehr were considered to be two of the top defensemen in the league – that time was 2004. With the speed of the game dramatically picking up, these two players have been forced to adjust their games.

Hannan has gone from being a consistent ‘plus’ player to a liability in some instances. His career low -21 rating in 2008-09 speaks volumes for how far he has fallen.

Regehr, on the other hand, has stayed in the positives for most of his career, and despite his lack of speed has been able to adjust, somewhat.

What I am saying is that Regehr has a little more value than Hannan and the Flames, if they had been smart, could have probably snagged a pick and Fleischmann for Regehr and really helped themselves out for the future.

Instead, Fleischmann is an Avalanche, Hannan is a Cap, and the Flames are floating in the Ganges River without a paddle in sight.

For the full article click here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/globe-on-hockey/think-darry...

Newman

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thesportsroundup@gmail.com

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