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4 Games to go for Calgary and feels like the walls are closing in doesn’t it? If you remember last season the Flames lost their last 4 games of the season but backed into the playoffs anyway. Not to be to morbid but I am not sure they have the luxury of losing 4 and backing in, but I don’t think that will happen anyway, I expect that the Flames will continue to battle for top spot in the division considering the games they have in hand.

No Langkow tonight in Vancouver as he has had a death in his family, Dustin Boyd will draw in. It was an optional skate this morning so no word on what line combinations may look like. I wonder if you split up the 3rd line, to move Lombardi up to the top line?

The Canucks will be with out Brendan Morrison for the rest of the year, tough break for Morrison who had been injury riddled in the last calendar year. Here was a guy who was the NHL’s Iron man until earlier this year, he came back from wrist surgery, but didn’t have much strength to shoot, saw that first hand when they were in town last Tuesday.

To say Owen Nolan is due would be an understatement the veteran forward has not found the back of the net in the past 21 games. The Flames need him to get going to make life easier the rest of the way.

I was caught up doing the playoff math this morning and I am here to tell you that it can give you a headache. So in the immortal words of Mike Rogers just win the damn games and the rest of the stuff will take care of itself.

On the show he go to great lengths to have fun at the expense of the Edmonton Oilers, and rightfully so, but I do appreciate the job Kevin Lowe and Craig MacTavish have done with this injury riddled young team. Last season at this time the Oilers were in one of the worst slides seen in the modern NHL, after losing Ryan Smyth at the trade deadline the Oilers were dreadful the rest of the way in 06/07. Facing a similar situation this year with injuries and the lack of star power the Oilers have become one of the hottest teams since the trade deadline of this season. There is no doubt that the youth on Edmonton will serve it well, but does it necessarily guarantee success for next year, maybe not. If you remember last season the St.Louis Blues were in a similar position playing kids winning late in the season, and there was a lot of praise for the work of Andy Murray, one year later not much has changed the Blues are 2nd last in the west.

Flames held an optional practice this morning with only 13 players taking the skate, none of the front line guys choosing to participate.

Updated 11:52am - Kristian Huselius is back in the line up tonight according to coach Mike Keenan, most likely Dustin Boyd will draw out of the line up, but the final decision will come after the pre game warm up.

The Flames had a quick practice today, Tanguay back on the ice today, no Smith and Owen Nolan was not on the ice. Nolan was just maintenance and Smith still struggling with the concussion.

Iron Mike took mild offence to my question today regarding Kristian Huselius; all I wanted to know was how the coach thought #20 had responded in the last couple of practices after he was a healthy scratch Tuesday. Keenan wondered what I was reaching for, that was easy, nothing! You take your #2 scorer out of the line up you shouldn’t be surprised that people would like to get your opinion on how he has responded, that’s my opinion and respectfully the coach doesn’t agree.

Robyn Regehr has picked up the gauntlet thrown down by former Flame Andrew Ference; the former Calgary D-man is trying to get former and current team mates to help with Right to Play. Right to Play is a charity that works with under developed countries to get kids into sports. This Summer Regehr and Bruins star Zdeno Chara will go to Mozambique to help spread the word.

No Tanguay and Smith at practice today, Smith still recovering from his concussion, and Tanguay is just maintenance on his toe.

Keenan woke everybody up today at practice, the Flames were finishing with a hard skate and Iron Mike fired up the tunes real loud, I have never scene that before at an NHL practice, but the guys seem to real respond.

Talked to Anders Eriksson today his baby girl and wife are doing fine, his newest daughter was born a couple of months premature and is currently in hospital in an incubator and will be for another month. Anders isn’t getting much sleep these days, but his really happy with the care his family is getting.

No news on Huselius today, Keenan didn’t talk about #20 at all, and when Kristian spoke to the media he didn’t know if he was in or out Saturday.

Off day for the Flames as they enjoy a brief respite, and there is a big push coming at the end of the week. Starting Saturday Calgary plays 5 games in 8 days to finish the season, 4 on the road which should prove to be an interesting test for the club which seems to have reverted back to last years tendency to play well at home and not so good on the road.

The Flames are currently tied for 3rd in the NHL for best home record, which is not bad but it is amazing to think that this years team is 13 points off last years pace at home, and if they had the home record that they had in 06/07 the Flames would be about 10 points ahead of Detroit for the lead this year.

I think Mike Keenan has done a nice job in the last couple of weeks of working this team into some what a state of consistency. For a club that went on wild swings of wins and losses as often as this team has through out the year they really have seemed in the past week or so found a consistency of sorts. Keenan has made some tough decisions in sitting down veterans, and as made some pretty dramatic roster adjustments before and after games which all seem to have worked out.

My advice for you over the next 3 nights with all of these other teams in the northwest, while the Flames sit until Saturday, DON’T SWEAT IT. Calgary controls there on destiny still and that is the most important thing at this time of the year.

Weird vibe today at the Dome, not the usual “oh the Flames lost things are bleak” just a little weird, the skates were flipped around with Vancouver going first and the Flames following at 11:30am.

The big news around the Calgary Flames today was the apparent benching of Kristian Huselius for tonight’s game. The Flames 2nd leading scorer has been benched for the 2nd time in his tenure with Calgary. The last time it happened was November 4th 2006 in St.Louis, after that if you remember Huselius went on a real tear for the next 20 or so games. My first reaction to this when I heard was why now? I know he hasn’t played much in the last 3 games, but my question is why now, why not a month ago? Mike Keenan was not forthcoming with a real concrete reason as to what about Kristian’s game that he wasn’t happy with. I was also told by someone with the team that sitting Huselius is also intended to wake up some other veterans, names like Nolan, Conroy, and Tanguay came up.

The Flames have not played the Canucks since New Years Eve, and in the 5 previous games Vancouver have won 4 of those games. For Calgary, who play the Canucks 3 times the rest of the way, the most important thing is to get Jarome Iginla going against the left coasters. The captain has just 1 goal in 5 games this season, and just 3 points he has to get better is the Flames are going to take this mini series.

Here is a stat that probably grabs your attention; the Flames have the 5th best home record in the entire NHL. When I saw that today I was a little surprised, but since the middle of January the Flames have been very good at home.

Line up notes for tonight, Kipper versus Luongo, Dustin Boyd is in for Huselius, other then that it should be fairly regular line ups for both teams.

Let me be the first to say that I am not a huge fan of having to cheer for Edmonton to help out the Flames, couldn’t we just cheer on the Wild to bury the Oilers and make up the 2 points somewhere else.

The Flames have a real chance, for the umpteenth time, to prove to their critics that they are capable of shedding the inconsistent label which has dogged them all season long. The Avalanche are reeling right now, having lost their last 4 games, including a debacle up in Edmonton, which saw them erase a 3 goal deficit 4 minutes into the 3rd period before letting that slip away. I can give you a million reasons why the Av’s will be better tonight, I can give you a million excuses for why the Flames usually struggle at the Pepsi Center, but Calgary will need win this game if they want top spot in the Northwest.

Peter Forsberg will play in just his 2nd game in the last 8 games tonight for the Avalanche that is not good enough if Colorado wants to go any where. Forsberg was the toast of Denver when he decided to return at the Trade Deadline on February 26th, but in the past couple of weeks he has been blamed for a lot of the troubles that the Avalanche have endured. I think some of the criticism has been flung a little too freely at Foppa, saying that he is a distraction is probably a little harsh, the Av’s have over 300 man games lost to injury, so they are use to having good players on the side lines.

I anticipate that Miikka Kiprusoff is going to play the two games back to back, in Denver tonight and at home against Vancouver tomorrow. He will see Jose Theodore at the other end of the ice tonight. Mark Smith will not suit up tonight against the Av’s, a game time replacement will be made I would guess Eric Nystrom will get back in, but only time will tell.

Watch Mike Keenan at the beginning of the game; see what he does to spark his team in terms of line combinations. This is the perfect game to try and do something early physically, since he understands that the Av’s are going to be revved up.

I don’t have an answer, but let me ask the question, how long will Huselius remain in the dog house? Just a hair over 6 minutes in average in the last two games, true the Flames have won both games, but at some point Calgary will need his offence.

Well a different Calgary Flames team showed up on Thursday night versus the Colorado Avalanche, a team far more committed to defense then we have seen in the past month or so, but who shows up tonight versus Minnesota. Peter Maher has had one consistent criticism of this team this year, they get to happy to quick, and I would have to say he is bang on. The Flames have bounced back a number of times this year, just when you think the wheels have fallen off completely they rally for an impressive win, and in the next few games seem to fall back to their previous ways. Right now they can’t afford that to happen again, the Wild won last night in Vancouver and are 3 pts up on the Flames for top spot in the division, if Calgary loses tonight they would be 5 points back with 7 games to go. The math just doesn’t work out for the Flames in that scenario, they need to win tonight and with a game in hand catching the Wild would be quite conceivable.

Interesting twist by Mike Keenan to start Jim Vandermeer on the wing against the Avalanche, it took him 9 seconds to get into a fight that emotion seemed to spark the team right off the hopper. I did ask myself if you wanted to get a fight right away why not tell Eric Goddard to go and start one? The answer to that was quite simple no Scott Parker, the AV’s tough guy is out of the line up so there wouldn’t be a dance partner for Eric, it made more sense to put a middle weight out there to get things started.

Even though the results haven’t been overwhelming for Calgary in the last week it should be noted that some of the role players have really started to bring their “A” game to the rink consistently. Stephane Yelle, Wayne Primeau, and Marcus Nilson have all been a lot more noticeable in recent games. Primeau in particular has been crashing the net and making life difficult for the opposition defensemen with the fore check. Yelle isn’t that much of surprise because he is playing the way he is know to play, that gritty anything to win effort shift in shift out. Marcus Nilson might be the biggest surprise for me of late, I like many, wrote him off earlier in the year, he has been a valuable utility guy in the past week, if this team is going to have success moving forward it needs guys like him to keep bringing the effort every night.

The Wild have not played great in their past 15 or so games, and are just 4-2-4 in their past 10 games, but they lead the division by 3 coming into this one. The Wild will be with out one of their key D-Men Kurtis Foster after he broke is leg in San Jose on Wednesday night, that will impact their power play, as he compliments Brent Burns very well back at the point. The key for the Wild in this game tonight will be Marion Gaborik’s ability to work through Robin Regehr’s presence. Minnesota doesn’t score a lot, so if you shut done Gaborik more often then not you will shut down the Wild.

Watch Kristian Huselius tonight, he played just 6 and half minutes last game, will he get the message? The Flames need him to battle through adversity and not shy away when the going gets tough, and considering the time of the year he should have no problem getting the message.

Lines at practice Saturday morning

Tanguay not practicing

Nilson Langkow Iginla
Huselius Conroy Nolan
Yelle Lombardi Primeau
Smith Boyd Goddard
Nystrom Moss

Eriksson Phaneuf
Regeher Sarich
Vandermeer Aucoin
Hale

Kiprusoff
Joseph

Congrats to Dean and his lovely wife Trish, they welcomed their 2nd son into the world yesterday; Mother is doing fine, Boomer well we will just leave that alone for a while.

You know its funny when I dreamt of having a job like this, and trust me I did dream of having a job like this, you never ever pictured the tense times, I always had that minds eye view of wins and interviews. Nobody warns you about the late season pressure that you witness following a hockey club, especially one on the cusp of making the play-offs. I first witnessed it when I worked at SAIT in the mid 90’s at that time I think everybody made the post season, but man the tension around a team was shocking to me. I saw it again in the SJHL, when an entire town lived and died with every game, you never got a way from it. Now having covered 2 NHL teams in the last 8 years it still amazes me how the last month of season the pressure and tension around the team goes through the roof. It is not just here, but everywhere you look around the league people, off the record, are either planning the parade route or are convinced their team may never win again. For a long time I tried to hide the tension, trying to pretend that I was above it all, that I wasn’t affected. That is a lie, it is hard to be impacted by being around nervous people, tense, people, elated people, or stressed people. I don’t mention this for sympathy, or as an explanation, or for any other reason other then to give you a little behind the scenes of what it is like at the Dome these days.

Further to that point, with the current state of the Flames I would like to take this time out to apologize to all of you out there who are not hearing what you want to hear. Everyday I hear from somebody who is mad because we aren’t critical enough of the Flames, and then we hear from people who feel we are too critical. It use to bother me since it can be a little confusing, but I can tell you what you hear is what I think, it remains skewed and awkward as always.

The Flames definitely feel the pressure that was very evident yesterday on the off day, there were a ton of clichés and now real answers, but then how could there be. The way the Flames have played the last week leaves you with a ton of questions, but the only answer that merits any real consideration is the one given on the ice tonight. The Flames need to prove tonight that they can compete with the Avalanche. If they put on another performance like Tuesday night in Columbus the Avalanche will role them, it won’t be pretty, and I think we will all a=have a pretty good idea how this one will end.

Everybody on the ice for practice today, for the exception of Rhett Warrener, Darryl Sutter also watched practice today from the bench for a little bit this morning.

The Av’s were being a little evasive yesterday on the future of Forsberg and Foote for this game tonight, both missed practice yesterday. Foppa has a bad groin, and has only played in half of the games since he returned to the Av’s on Feb26.

Tanguay left practice about 10 minutes in, which would explain why smith got elevated to the 2nd line; I doubt he will be there when the puck drops.

Lines

Huselius Langkow Iginla
Smith Conroy Nolan
Yelle Lombardi Primeau
Nilson Boyd Goddard
Nystrom Conroy (again) Moss

Erickson Phaneuf
Regehr Sarich
Vandermeer Aucoin
Hale

Kiprusoff Joseph

The Flames final game against someone from outside the Northwest division as they play the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nation Wide Arena tonight. First the line up changes, David Hale is back in as Anders Eriksson has returned to Calgary to be with his wife for the birth of their new baby. It a appears that David Moss will finally get back into the line up with the injury to Eric Nystrom, while Alex Tanguay is a game time decision with a broken toe . I should warn you that line up changes haven’t been that reliable since Christmas time, so take it all with a grain of salt, except the part about Eriksson that is a done deal.

So Columbus wants retribution, with out publicly coming out and saying they have put a bounty on Damon Langkow’s head, it sure sounds like there will be one tonight privately. Two weeks ago Langkow slashed Jared Boll behind the leg, and the tough guy leg the game and came back later to finish the game. Over the last couple of days a number of Jackets have hinted that they intend to get back at Langkow and the Flames. God I sure hope so, the Flames are a much better in those type of those games, many people around the league have commented to me that they always see highlights of the Flames fighting and winning hockey games, equating the physical play to team success for Calgary.

I hope the Flames are not looking beyond this game tonight, I know I am, I am very excited to see what the last 9 games bring, with all games played with in the Northwest division. I think it has the potential to be something very special and something maybe that happens in the years to come.

By the way coming into this game the Flames are exactly the same place they were a year ago in terms of wins and losses and points, the exact same place after 72 games when it comes to their record, that’s hard to believe possible, considering how tight things have been this year.