Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the “Turtle Bowl”, wow who would have thought we would be sitting here in late January talking about the Flames and Oilers playing a game with the teams a combined 21 games with out victory heading in.
According to the cracker jack PR staff of the Calgary Flames if the Flames win this game tonight they will go 6-0 versus their provincial rivals, it will be the first time in 29 seasons that either team has swept the season series.
While the recent records of the two teams are similar there overall hockey outlook is completely different. The Oilers have had a number of high first round picks over the last couple of seasons and look to have a legitimate chance to pick first overall this summer in LA. The Oilers have never drafted higher then 4th, and although the lottery could have something to say about it could come away with Taylor Hall. They will/are starting from the ground up.
The Flames are in a totally different place they almost have to salvage this season and make a run, if they don’t turn it around soon they maybe forced to watch the Coyotes draft in the top ten with their pick. There are no quick fixes for the Flames, outside of having this group of players pull themselves out of this slump themselves. At some point the GM will make a move but at this point it is all a gamble.
Best player on the two game road trip, Dion Phaneuf, he was taking a few chances and was fairly stable in his own end. The one thing he has that others on this team could use and quite honestly still gets him to trouble is his compete level.
Backlund looked really good Thursday in Phoenix especially as the game wore on the more the intensity got turned up the better he seemed to play. The big question is can he do it two games in a row.
Two things to watch in this game and both boil down to one thing confidence, Calgary can not come out and play this game over confident or they will lose they need to play the same way they did in Dallas and Phoenix and make one or two less mistakes and they will be fine. For the Oilers they have to be confident coming into this game the Flames are struggling especially at home all you need to do is play a strong road game and keep it close just put more pressure on a team who has a ton of it already.
Lines
Glencross Langkow Bourque
Boyd Backlund Iginla
Lundmark Jokinen Nystrom
Sjostrom Prust McGratten
Kiprusoff is going tonight for the Flames
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Heard there was a different lineup tonight; Kipper’s out and Boyd is with Lanks and Bourque, Iggy and Lundmark with Jokinen on the 1st line, Glennie,Backlund and Nystrom 3rd line and Sjostrom plays with Prust and McGratton. I could be wrong. By the way, I sure enjoy it when you call the colour on the scraps. Love it, in fact. Thanks, Sheldon
- SheldonThey are playing the worst team in NHL they should win
- Brian DMcgratton and Sjostrom both got permanent numbers?
Was nice to see Iggy talking positively about the coaching staff. Seems like they are working together?
- Randy