Flames Post-Mortem

Matchsticks and Gasoline have a nice work up on what befell the Flames in the first round this year, but I have some differences of opinion as to the severity of the failure.

1. Injuries. The Flames literally limped into the playoffs over the last four weeks, and it only got worse as the playoffs went on. How bad was it? This was your starting top 6 defensemen;

Aucoin - Leopold
Sarich - Negrin
Pardy - Ericksson

In other words, 'ugh'. Leopold and Sarich are two useful defenders, but Aucoin's best days are long behind him, Negrin and Pardy are raw rookies and Ericksson spent the entire year in the AHL for a very good reason - he isn't an NHL caliber defenseman. If Calgary had Phaneuf, Regher, and Warrener instead of Pardy/Ericksson/Negrin things might have been much, much different.

The Flames are widely considered to be built around four pillars; Iginla, Kipper, Regehr, and Phaneuf, and two of those four pillars were MIA for most of the first round. As one commenter on the M+G post noted its a miracle we weren't swept.

2. Coaching. Aside from the devestating injuries the Flames were playing through the biggest factor working against Calgary was Keenan. How did he fail? Let me count the ways;

- A powerplay that never practices despite being 0-5465 over the last half of the season (I exagerrate slightly). The truth is they were awful.

- When bottom six guys were out playing the top six, he never fed them more ice-time. Nystrom was Calgary's best forward in Game 5, but his ice-time barely shifted for Game 6.

- Strange fixation with Todd Bertuzzi. Listen, I dig Bertuzzi more than most, and all things considered he had a pretty good year, but he wasn't bringing much offense to the table at even strenght, and he turned into a give-away machine and penalty risk over the latter half of the series. You'd think that would mean 3rd and 4th line ice-time for the big fella, but no - Keenan had Bert playing with Iginla come hell or high-water, and his elbowing penalty two-minutes into Game 6 convinced me he doesn't belong. I'd have swapped Glen-X, Moss, Nystrom, Bourque or even Boyd onto Iggy's line the minute Bertuzzi started to struggle.

- Refusal to line-match with Quenville. Chicago managed to get the Keith-Seabrook pairing out whenever Iginla was out - and they did this whether Keenan had the last change or not.

3. Iggy's supporting cast. Langkow was playing with both hands busted. Jokinen was still trying to find chemistry with any winger on the club. Cammalleri vanished after game one never to appear again. Bourque gamely played through his recovery from a high-ankle sprain. In short, the forwards lacked both health and scoring touch, and that meant a lot of rough nights in the offensive zone.

4. Kiprusoff. The Flames outshot Chicago 44-16 in the final game and lost 4-1. That is normally a pretty clear indication that your goaltender was outplayed by the other guy. Kipper's been on a steady statistical slide since his boffo 2004 season, and is signed for big $ for several more years. Despite that, he was still one of the winningest goaltenders in the regular season - in part because he played an obscene number of games.

So...what to do?

The following players will likely not return;

Cammalleri - too expensive
Aucoin - expensive+old+slow
Bertuzzi - simply isn't the physical terror he was in the past, and his offense is now mediocre at best.

And you can pencil in the following as call-ups;

Backlund - he's been tearing it up for the Kelowna Rockets in the playoffs (including a hat-trick to elimenate the Vcr Giants on the same night Calgary went down in flames), and should replace some or most of the offense lost with Cammalleri's departure.

Negrin/Pelech - both impressed for short stretches, with Negrin having the higher offensive upside, and Pelech the better all-round physical game. Both got their feet wet this year and both have a shot at cracking the top 7.

- Replace Keenan. IMO he's done as a coach and the Flames would benefit from a new hire (with the Hitmen's Dave Lowry my top target). Injuries are the main issue with Calgary's playoff performance, but the fact is Keenan is a whip cracker and isn't a chess-master anymore (if he ever was) and Calgary needs someone who can do more than just roll his favourites over the board and tear the paint off the walls between periods.

- Get a backup goaltender who can spell Kiprusoff and win some games doing so. Kipper's best year came in the season he played the fewest games, and while he can be a workhorse, the load this year was clearly way too heavy for one guy to carry on his own. Even 15 fewer games would be awesome.