Head Tale

Good Regular Season Goals:

https://twitter.com/6aba9ool/status/1530085055057563648

Not A Good Goal in the Playoffs:

Now that a few days have passed since the Flames lost to the Oilers in the first Battle of Alberta since 1991 and I’ve read a lot of commentary about the game and series, I can share some of my own thoughts…

Whatever else happened in terms of penalties, poor performances by certain players and a controversial goal called back late in the series deciding game, in the end, the Flames lost a series they should’ve won pure and simple.

Given their regular season performances, the respective rosters, and the coaches, this surprised me, many professional commentators (including a pretty great one) – and even many Oiler fans too – one of my neighbours said he was sure the Flames would win four games to zero after the first game!

Some reasons…

* Jacob Markstrom who is a Vezina finalist this year, doesn’t play well against Canadian teams and the Oilers in particular for some reason.  He had an extremely poor playoff series with, according to a graphic shown during the series, one of the biggest drop-offs in GAA in history from one series to the next.  (Did I mention he’s a Vezina finalist this year?)

* Darryl Sutter is an amazing coach who is a Jack Adams nominee this year after he turned a team that many thought might not even make the playoffs at the start of the season into a Pacific Division leading powerhouse.  But he made some unusual decisions in this series – continually rolling his lines no matter the situation, sticking with Jacob Markstrom for the most part, no matter how much he struggled and even though the Flames had as good of a backup as they’ve had in years, even some of his post-game interview comments are being criticized in hindsight.

* Connor McDavid has entered “God mode” these playoffs.  Watching him, I often think how it’s almost unbelievable in a league of the best players in the world – who made this their goal since a very young age, who have the best training and nutrition and equipment, who are laser-focused on improving year-round – and yet McDavid regularly makes the best athletes in the world look like amateurs.

* Leon Draisital is not far behind McDavid in terms of his performance.  Between the two of them, they currently have 52 points (26 each) in 12 games played.  The next closest pair of high scorers play for the Rangers and have 27 combined points in 14 games played.

* The Flames’ best players simply didn’t step up in the same way the Oilers’ did.  Gaudreau has a history of disappearing in the playoffs and though he scored an amazing Game 7 OT goal in round one and put up points in round two, his size often hurts him in playoff hockey which tends to be tighter and harder hitting. Tkachuk was hampered by an injured hand gained in an unnecessary fight early in round one.

* Speaking of playoff hockey, honestly, it felt like this series lacked intensity given the fact that it was a Battle of Alberta.  But there might be a reason for that too.  The Oilers advocated all season for better treatment of their stars/lack of penalty calls in favour of McDavid, especially last playoffs, and that appeared to take hold as there were a number of otherwise rare 4-on-4 situations, 4-minute penalties against the Flames, late calls, a large number of calls against the Flames especially in game two when I think penalties were 6-2 or something, etc.

* By my count, over the five games in the series, the Oilers had 58 PIM and the Flames had 73 PIM – nearly a full extra period spent in the penalty box.

* Chris Tanev, who is the heart and soul of the Flames’ defense, had a serious injury and missed a few games (but then came back and played with a dislocated shoulder and torn labrum which ended up requiring surgery and will require 4-6 months to recover.)

* The Oilers secondary players outperformed the Flames’ secondary players – Zach Hyman was better than Blake Coleman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins outscored Andrew Mangipane, hell, goalie Mike Smith ended up with more points than Milan Lucic!

* The Flames’ relatively young and inexperienced defense struggled against the Oilers’ firepower.

* I’m not a conspiracy theorist but given the unrelenting focus on betting sites in broadcasts lately, you wonder if there was even a subconcious bias towards the Oilers and their star player who is basically the face of the NHL in many ways – everything from the change in how games were called (true, “game management” is a long-standing issue in the NHL) to the surprising decision to overturn the call on the ice on the Coleman goal contrary to long-established precedent in the NHL.  (I can’t find the link now but saw with my own eyes that the NHL has literally deleted a video on their YouTube channel that explained a very similar decision where a goal that was redirected – not kicked – into the net was allowed to stand after it was highlighted in an Eric Francis column.  Not suspicious at all!). Or what about the fact that the Oilers have a beautiful new arena which is among the nicest in the NHL (to watch the Oilers lose in!) while the Flames have had their plans for a new arena fall through?

Again, in the end, the Flames have to own this disappointing loss – they were tied late in the third of Games 2, 4 & 5 and lost them all.  They had no answer for McDrai (is shadowing still a thing or was that only in the 80s against Gretzky?) They lacked the level of compete and intensity you need to beat your supposed hated rivals.

Anyhow, the next series starts tonight – Go Avalanche Go!