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The Flames and Oilers meet for the first of 2 pre-season meetings and just 6 regular season meetings, play-offs???? As many questions that I got this off season about the Flames I got the same number about the Oilers. There are no shortage of those who believe the Oilers will win the NW walking away, I think they are a better team then they were a year ago overall, but I have questions.

One of those questions is “are they tough enough?”; they tried to address that earlier today by claiming tough guy d-man Steve MacIntyre of waivers from Florida. My other question is about the Edmonton goaltending, it looks as if the Oilers will start the season with 3 goalies not a comfortable thing to do. The young kids who lead the Oilers down the stretch are going to be interesting to watch now that the team is healthy if the ice time will favor Gagner and gang as it did late in 07/08.

Those are just questions that I have, I know that the Flames have just as many questions, but that’s why I don’t want to try and pick a North West division winner, and I would rather wait and see what we are going to get from the 5 teams.

Flames line up:

Bertuzzi Langkow Iginla
Glencross Boyd Moss
Roy Primeau Nystrom
Cammalleri Backlund Lundmark

Phaneuf Giordano
Pardy Aucoin
Sarich Vandermeer

McElhinney - Starter
Keetley

Edmonton line up:

Cole Horcoff Hemsky
Nilsson Cogliano Gagner
Moreau Spurgeon Lefebvre
Schremp Cornet Corazzini

Souray Visnovsky
Grebeshkov Gilbert
Peckham Roy
Smid Chorney – One pair will not dress

Roloson
Dubnyk

Flames had a fairly quiet weekend after their 8-2 win over Florida on Friday, they did assign John Negrin back to Kootenay on Saturday. I have no doubt in mind that Negrin will play in NHL for a long time, and it maybe as soon as next year if this team was thin on front line d-men he would probably be here now. Negrin is also stuck because of his age if they could I am sure Calgary would rather have him in Quad City, but that is not possible so back to the dub he goes.

After a spirited on air debate with Eric Francis on Friday about the long term future of Backlund with the team this year, the young Swede went out and struggled in a game that should have played into his hands. Talking to the coaches afterward they didn’t like the length of his shifts, they were also very interested to see how he handles the adversity of being demoted from his line and being sat in the last half of the game.

The talk this week is about how the Flames are going to keep everybody with the big club, who is on a one way deal? Who is on a two way deal? These are the questions being kicked around on the Monday before the final 3 games. After talking to Darryl Sutter on Friday I believe that what you do this week, as opposed to last week, will count more towards where you will be playing to start the season.

Lines from practice today:

Bourque Langkow Iginla
Lundmark Backlund Boyd
Bertuzzi Lombardi Cammalleri
Glencross Conroy Moss
Greentree Lombardi Sutter
Roy Primeau Nystrom

Regehr Aucoin
Giordano Phaneuf
Vandermeer Sarich
Eriksson Warrener
Pardy Pelech

Kiprusoff
McElhinney
Keetley

Not on the ice today at practice today Prust and Armstrong.

Found out yesterday that prospect Gord Baldwin suffered a significant knee injury and will be out for sometime, sorry about being vague but that’s all we got.

Lines for the game versus Florida.

Boyd Langkow Bourque
Burtuzzi Backlund Cammalleri
Glencross Lundmark Moss
Prust Primeau Conroy
Lombardi

Pardy Phaneuf
Eriksson Warrener
Giordano Sarich

Kiprusoff
McElhinney

Very veteran lineup for the Flames tonight, and by the looks of it, the Panthers will be an older line up as well.

Calgary continues to give Backlund every chance to make the team, last night against the Coyotes I thought he was better, but the opposition left a lot to be desired.

Kiprusoff will play the first half game tonight against the Coyotes and McElhinney will mop the final half.

Here are the Flames lines with a couple of extra players who will be game time decision.

Burtuzzi Lombardi Iginla
Cammalleri Backlund Glencross
Nystrom Peters Roy
B Sutter Armstrong Chucko

Regehr Sarich
Pelech Aucoin
Eriksson Negrin
J Vandermeer

Kiprusoff
McElhinney

The Coyotes roster is very weak tonight with no sight of Doan, Jokinen, or even Reinprecht, real, real weak.

Hopefully a fuller update tomorrow.

The Florida Flames rivalry heats up for the 3rd straight pre season as the teams will do battle twice in the next 4 nights beginning later this evening at the dome. One of Mike Keenan’s last acts as GM of the Panthers was to arrange some games in western Canada after e brief training camp in Vail Colorado but that was back in 06/07, Jacques Martin has continued this tradition and added the this twist Friday the Flames host Florida again, but then the following day the Panthers play the Islanders in Summerside PEI. Rest assured that the group playing in the Dome on Friday won’t be the ones playing on the East Coast the next day.

Florida are an interesting team, they dumped their captain Ollie Jokinen in the off season to the Coyotes getting back a budding star on the blue line Keith Ballard and a serviceable rear guard in Nick Boynton. They then made the late off season move of adding Bryan McCabe from the Leafs, so they do have a pretty good blue line and in Thomas Vokoun a pretty decent goalie. The Panthers lost 54 goals off their roster during the off season, but gained back 36 through trades and free agency. The bulk of those goals come from former Flame Cory Stillman with 21 goals.

There is a lot of pressure on this Panthers team to take that next step, goal scoring maybe a problem but their back end should be strong. Their division holds the key for the Panthers, defensively they could be the class of the South East, but clearly Tampa and Washington have the potential too out score everybody in the Division.

The one wild card in the Panther equation is the new head coach Pete DeBoer if he struggles early getting his message out to the players then it could make for a very slow start and they may not recover, but if the team buys into the new coaches philosophy that could give them early confidence.

A couple of notes from yesterdays group B practice late yesterday afternoon.

Mike Cammalleri left the ice early after tweaking something, no word on his condition or if it can even be called a condition.

After practice on Monday Keenan was asked about his teams fitness testing, Iron Mike said he has never had a team test as well as this team, we will see what that means as the season wears on.

Lines from practice

Burtuzzi Backlund Iginla
Boyd Lombardi Bourque
Nystrom Primeau Prust
Glencross Lundmark Moss

Regehr Sarich
Pardy Aucoin
Negrin Eriksson

McElhinney
Keetley

So Backlund gets to start with the big guys, great test for the kid.

I guess that the lines that the players practiced on for 3 days weren’t written in stone afterall.

Miikka Kiprusoff is back on the ice today after missing the last couple of days with the Flu, an educated guess Thursday’s game versus Phx likely the earliest we will see him in action.

What a day 2 for Rhett Warrener he beat the crap out of anybody who ca me with 5 feet of him. I blogged yesterday about his abuse of Kris Chucko, but that intense play was consistent through out the 2nd group yesterday. After the practice I interviewed Craig Conroy who showed me a Warrener induced welt on his back. Say what you will about Rhett’s situation when it comes to the salary cap he is not going quietly into the night.

Lines Group A

Burtuzzi Langkow Iginla
Cracknell Carpentier Cunning
Glencross Conroy Van der Gulik
Roy Peters Watt
Sutter Lundmark Chucko

Giordano Phaneuf
Wilson Warrener
Baldwin Palin
Negrin Eriksson

McElhinney
Irving

Note from yesterday, with Kiprusoff out with the Flu, the Flames used a couple of local collegiate goalies Ryan Dutton formally of MRC and Jeff Weber from the Uof C. Dutton helped out at a practice last season and will likely help out again this week with the Flames weird game and travel schedule.

Really quietly David Van der Gulik has fit in very well with Conroy and Glencross through 3 days of camp. I hope that they play a couple of games together in the pre-season, as the old saying goes practice is one thing prove to me you can do it under fire. David is a guy though that coaches talk about as doing the little things very well, not flashy but a solid pro.

Tough camp to figure out, there are a number of young guys that are intriguing and you wonder if they are on the cusp this year, but….. too many guys on one way NHL deals. That is not to say that if some one blows the doors off they won’t have to make room but right now it’s not a matter of who will fill a void, but who will they keep.

Group B is out this afternoon with out Miikka Kiprusoff who for the 2nd day is missing with the Flu! Ryan Dutton out there again as the extra goalie.

Lines for Group B

Boyd Lombardi Moss
Prust Primeau Nystrom
Bourque Backlund Cammalleri
Greentree Armstrong Germyn
P Vandermeer Seitsonen Tremblay

Regehr Sarich
Pardy Aucoin
J Vandermeer Pelech
Spang Cole

McElhinney
Ryan Dutton

The Backlund line has taken turns playing up the middle with all 3 players taking a turn at center.

The Flames won’t release the official fitness testing results but they did give us the top finishers. No surprise that the Captain was number one when it comes to the vets with Lombardi a close second. As far as the rookies go Matt Pelech was number 1 with Brett Sutter right behind him. The word around the dome is that Coach Keenan demanded more attention to fitness this off season and strength and conditioning Coach Rich Hesketh delivered that to the players.

Group B skated first this morning.
Kiprusoff did not skate with this group, Irving took his place.

Greentree Armstrong Germyn
P Vandermeer Seitsonen Tremblay
Boyd Lombardi Moss
Cammalleri Backlund Bourque
Seitsonen Ryder P Vandermeer
Prust Primeau Nystrom

Regehr Sarich
Pardy Aucoin
J Vandermeer Pelech
Spang Cole

Irving
Keetley

Kiprusoff is out today with the flu, so the Flames have borrowed a goalie from the local college ranks.

Group A lines

Burtuzzi Langkow Iginla
Chucko Lundmark Sutter
Glencross Conroy Van der Gulik
Cunning Carpentier Cracknell
Roy Peters Watt

Wilson Warrener
Giordano Phaneuf
Negrin Eriksson
Baldwin Palin

McElhinney
College goalie dude

Chucko took a big league open ice hit from Warrener early on in practice. Kris looked woozy and left the ice. He was back out fairly quickly no worse for wear.

Goodbye Wayne! Thursday we learned that Flames Assistant Coach Wayne Flemming was leaving the team for a head coaching job in Russia. As I said on the show that afternoon and even yesterday I wish Wayne the best of luck in Omsk. All Wayne wants to do in life is be a head coach, he gets that now and I am sure that he will have some great stories to tell when he comes back. The timing is odd though!

Curtis McElhinney is wearing number 1 this year, after losing his number 31 to Cujo last year he has made the switch to hockey longest serving goalie number.

If they run lines during practice we will try and grab them for you, but already we have seen Burtuzzi, Langkow, and Iginla together.

The practices are open to the public, at no cost, for the next couple of days the practice times are 9am and noon.

Marcus Nilson was not out with group A today, other then that all hands on deck.

Lines for Group A

Burtuzzi Langkow Iginla
Glencross Conroy Van der Gulik
Roy Peters Watt
Lundmark Sutter Chucko
Carpentier Cunning Cracknel

Giordano Phaneuf
Negrin Eriksson
Wilson Warrener
Baldwin Palin

Irving
McElhinney

2nd group is out there now, a few twists to mention.

Brandon Prust is now wearing number 29.

Kiprusoff has a new mask, hard to describe it but I am sure there will be plenty of pictures in the paper.

All four goalies in camp are wearing white pads, the Marc Andre Fluery trend continues.

Lines for Group B

Boyd Lombardi Moss
Cammalleri Backlund Bourque
Germyn Armstrong Greentree
Prust Primeau Nystrom
P Vandermeer (J Tremblay) Ryder Seitsonen

Pardy Aucoin
Regehr Sarich
J Vandermeer Pelech
Cole Spang

Kiprusoff
Keetley

It appears that the Calgary Flames are going to give Backlund every chance to prove himself playing with a couple of skilled NHL guys will tell us real quick if he is ready for prime time.

The latest on Marcus Nilson is that the Flames put him on waivers today for the express purpose of allowing a team to pick him for nothing. If he is not picked up and the Flames want to assign him they will have to place him on waivers yet again. Why now? Good question.

Correction from yesterday and the day before, Flames draft pick from June Ryley Grantham is actually 20 years old but is not signed. I have mentioned that Flames had just 3 guys that could play in the Junior or AHL this year; with Grantham technically they have 4. Grantham however is not a signed player, so in real terms the Flames had only 3 signed guys that could play in wither league. Also I mentioned that it was impressive that Ryley had gone toe to toe with Vancouver’s Rahimi in the game on Monday while it was a good tilt it certainly wasn’t a vet versus a kid as I mistakenly made it out be.

The Flames prospects had a skate this morning the numbers are thin since 7 guys were re-assigned yesterday, primarily working on skills for over an hour today.

Had a chance to talk to the coaching staff about the prospects here are a few of the crib notes.

Overall the team is very happy with the guys drafted this past June in Ottawa; the two players that jumped out were TJ Brodie and Lance Bouma. The first pick of the Flames Greg Nemisz was good but the coaches want to see him get stronger and work on some skill areas. That said Nemisz did turn heads with his ability to stand in front of the net that has most drooling if he can translate that to the NHL level.

Overall the fitness level of the young players was the most talked about topic among coaches. This years group came into the camp in great shape, the difference between these players from this year to five years ago is night and day I was told.

Why is the conditioning better because the team has made it a priority, and the feeling that Rich Hesketh has done a real good job of getting the youngsters to buy in quickly.

Quick thought on Backlund, Boom and I debated what we saw from him in Camrose, the coaches on the other hand weren’t disappointed at all. Backlund has been on the ice consistinly since the Flames prospects camp in July and might be a little fatigued. The Flames brass would also like to see him with better players in the main camp.

Darryl Sutter has always put an importance on getting junior players back to their club teams in a timely fashion; he followed up on that philosophy today. The Flames sent Mitch Wahl, Ryley Grantham, Lance Bouma, Per Jonsson, TJ Brodie, Keith Aulie, and Greg Nemisz back to junior.

In my eyes the guy that had the best camp in this group was TJ Brodie, the Saginaw blue liner had two really strong games in the rookie tournament in Camrose. All in all most of these guys showed real signs of promise, a far cry from 4 or 5 seasons ago when there was very little to talk about with the first round of cuts.

Off the top of my head that leaves the flames with a handful of junior eligible players in camp including Leland Irving, John Armstrong, Hugo Carpentier, and John Negrin.