No sign of Dustin Boyd at practice today so don’t look for his return tomorrow and no likely till some time next week. Upper body injury has side lined the young center, hopefully he will be a 100% soon and pickup were he left off.
The Flames improved play of late has many questions being asked, but the most common one is why?
The 4 day break that the Flame used after their 6-1 loss in San Jose and their 4-1 win over Colorado seems to be the genesis of their improved performance. During that time the Flames tweaked their defensive system, while not a full blow 5 man trap system there are components of the trap being used by the Flames. But the biggest reason for the turn around seems to be something as simple as everybody buying in.
I talked one coach who told me that the leadership of the team as done a great job of getting the team to believe in the message that the coaches are delivering. They really understand now that nobody has to be great but they all need to be good is how it was put to me.
I have mentioned it a number of times on the air and I will repeat it here I have not seen a Flames team of recent memory play so many games with out any wild swings in their play. There is a real consistency to how they have played the last 18 periods. They did not win on the 22nd against November but even that game wasn’t that big a departure from the things that they are doing better.
Discipline is the biggest asset this team has going for it right now, they have no surrendered a power play goal in the past 6 games, but then have only allowed 15 power play opportunities against. Even bigger then that, was the way the club walked away from the Canucks for most of the two game home and home series and didn’t fall into the trap of chasing after Kesler and Burrows all night.
But will it last? If it does they should be really good by the time the play offs role around, if it doesn’t they will have to find a way to re sell the message that this team has clearly bought into at this time.
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