When to make a change? and what change should be made? Those are the questions that I can’t escape, every where I go for the last couple days, those are the things I keep hearing.
Yesterday I spent about 5 hours on my roof stringing Christmas Lights (I agree it is way to early) so I had time to give it quite a bit of thought, but I really didn’t come up with answers, just more questions.
I am not a believer in change for the sake of change, or making a move because you’re mad or angry with some one. So if you want to fire a coach or trade a top player there had better be a plan for handling the change.
5 games into this season and this team already appears tight and that isn’t a great frame of mind to find yourself in. You can point fingers at coaches and I would point them at the players, someone has to take responsibility here.
If you just leave it alone it will take care of itself! Well it may very well take care of itself, but what if it doesn’t? It is almost comical to me how the last 4 years have started off in very similar fashion; clearly there is a reoccurring issue that has to be isolated and fixed.
Again as I stated before I do not really have the answer, but the brain trust of this team had better get a handle on it, this is a club who had some pretty lofty expectations for itself coming in and is pretty close to having to just win to be battling for a play off spot.
This is a team that needs a statement tomorrow, a statement on the ice, a statement from management, or a statement from somewhere what direction are you going. The world seems to be watching what is happening in Calgary right now, let alone your fans are watching and wanting to believe the messages from the pre season.
I will say this I believe the patience shown by the GM in the past couple of years may not be there like it has been at the past. Ownership wants to win right now and very, very badly (despite the conspiracies that are out there) and as a result the pressure is on the management of this team. Darryl Sutter and Ken King would both tell you that there is pressure to win every year, but this year it would be double I am sure.
If the players like the coach and playing with each other then they had better get on the same page as I doubt that this is a team prepared to wait until Christmas to shake things up. Well I can’t see any major changes between now and the end of the first 10 games, but if nothing changes I would bet that all options are on the table by the start of November.
I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.
- Sue MasseyIt drives me crazy in the NHL, really in all pro sports in this day and age, how it is so easy to just dump the coach in troubled times. It’s easy, doesn’t rock the boat and makes the average fan feel like management is trying to fix things. It makes people look away from what is really the problem, the PLAYERS! When do we as Flames fans finally say Kipper you played awfull these first 5 games or Dion you need to play a team game remember defence? But we seem not to want to rock the boat or not call out our favorite team’s best players. These guys are pros, they nead to be accountable for blowing 2 goal leads on a consistent basis. You want to turn this thing around put Kipper on the bench for a while let Dion watch a powerplay, sit Lombardi when his guy is WIDE open on goal after goal. Make these stupid mistakes payable by losing time on the ice or even put a high profile guy in the press box. Mr. Conroy, nice fella, but enjoy your popcorn! It will never happen and they all know it. So we’ll just keep wanting Sutter’s head on a platter, playoffs year after year not enough for us. Making this team a perennial contender, get rid of him! And stick our head in the sand and keep being nice to good old Kipper, after all , he’s fragile remember?
- ShauneI agree Rob, don’t make changes unless you have a good contingency plan in place. I can tell you from being at the Dome for most of the home games that the mood is quickly turning sour. The fans expect to see a winner, and we can all remember how things went the last time we had a team that didn’t win. It’s hard to preach patience to a crowd that expects to see a dominant team every night and has watched 4 years of slow starts and 3 consecutive years of first round play-off exits.
- Bob in the AbbeyYou’re absolutlely right Rob. This team needs to show the character and determination that it looks like it has (on paper), or even close to it. I think that these slow starts are getting to be a bit old. I don’t doubt for a second that management and ownership want to wait until christmas to see if this team will “show up”. This team needs to show that it is better than last years team, the team before that, and the team than won the division in 05/06. There is still lots of time to do that, but they need to show it sooner rather than later!
Matt
- Matt