Well, it’s been a trial here at the start of the season. The Calgary Flames have just one regulation win (against the Edmonton Oilers, fortunately) to their name, two gut-wrenching shootouts dropped to Vancouver and Chicago, and three regulation losses. It’s been almost three weeks and we’ve got a whole five points to celebrate. Not exactly an ideal start.

My family has a long tradition of watching the Flames together, which mostly includes shouting at the TV and sometimes giving up after the second period. Much of this is due to my mother, who is the most animated hockey fan I know. I have no doubt that she would be a much better Coach’s Corner installation than Don Cherry.

I routinely have to ask her if I can tweet the awesome things she says about hockey, and finally I decided to ask her some questions about the Flames’ season so far. I trust you’ll enjoy this as much as I did.

How do the Flames look so far?

They look like they had too much Christmas cake, or pudding. They have talent but not everyone is showing up for work. If it wasn’t for Kipper, the score would be 100-2 for visitors, in each game so far.

Side note on Miikka Kiprusoff: He currently sports an ugly .859 SV%, which doesn’t inspire as much confidence in me as it does in my mother. Ryan Pike at Flames Nation noted the other day, though, that it’s really his power play SV% that’s dragging him down–right now .647, which, ugh. His SV% at evens is .885%–not good either, but I suppose you take what you can get.

If you’ll allow some #fancystats in here for a minute (don’t tell), NHL Numbers has compiled team PDO through Sunday’s games and Calgary currently sits dead last at .940. PDO regresses to .1000, and you can read more about it here. This basically means it has to get better at some point, right? Soon?

… Ugh, I think I need some of that cake too.

What do you think of Bob Hartley?

Needs to kick more butt! He needs more oomph!

What should he do?

Bob Hartley needs to kick offense butts with a steel-toed Alberta boot and yell at them to shoot the god-damn puck into the back of the net, not at the posts. He can use the same boot to kick defense butts to stop the gd puck from going into the back of the net. He then should give Miika a cookie – chocolate chip. Or maybe oatmeal raisin.

Terry Crisp’d. I like the cookie incentives, though.

How about Martin Gelinas?

GELINAAAAASSS!!! Finally we have a cute, hunky coach. Hunka hunka burning love. Ooh-hoo-hoo. Um. What was the question?

This answer is better than all other answers forever. My mom also is better than yours. I just hope you understand.

If you were on Coach’s Corner, what would you do?

I would get rid of all boomerangs and then kick Don Cherry’s butt to Timbuktu and have them put him in the dinosaur museum, or a fossil museum. Is there a dinosaur or fossil museum in Timbuktu?

Hahaha, there is in fact a museum there that might do.

Are the Oilers going to make the playoffs?

ARRRRRRRRRRGGGHHH! Yes, they will make it to the playoffs. 

Arrggghhhh indeed. My mom seems to be higher on the Oilers than many, but Edmonton currently sports a .970 PDO and, as Cam Charron noted in the above NHLN post, the team is shooting just above 5%. There’s a great deal of room for improvement, and those young guns are fun. As it stands now Edmonton has ten points, which is good for sixth place in the West–tied with Phoenix with a game in hand. Calgary, of course, is a lowly last place, two points behind the Kings. Party in the basement.

The Flames begin their three-game road trip tonight against the creaky old Red Wings at Joe Louis, nice and early at 5:30 PM. Get your popcorn–and please, hockey gods, give Jarome a goal or three!

Tags: Don Cherry, Gelinas, Hartley, Kiprusoff, Mom Analysis

Posted in Hlushko Hodgepodge |