Not such a great start to the Flames season, is it?
Two straight humbling losses is still far too early to panic if you’re coach Brent Sutter or GM Jay Feaster, but it’s forgivable if Calgary fans start sounding skeptical or nervous.
What about all this strength at the centre position? What about the plan to limit Miikka Kiprusoff to about 60 games or so and work Henrik Karlsson into crease for the other 20 to 25? What about the defence that has added mobility and a new bent toward supplementing the offence?
It’s fair to give these guys another half-dozen games or so to determine if this is just a bad start or ultimately a bad team having a bad start. In the meantime, here are some first impressions I’m left with:
• The new defensive pairing of Jay Bouwmeester and Chris Butler looks like one of the most passive tandems in the league.
Yes, both have other attributes like skating, defensive positioning, reach, etc., but opposing teams will have a field day winning physical battles against them. J-Bo has never been much of a hitter (just 73 in 82 games last season) and Butler had just 38 hits in 49 games for Buffalo in 2010-11. By comparison, Robyn Regehr, the defender Butler is replacing, had 180 hits last season.
In the two early season losses, Calgary’s new stingless B’s combined for two hits and a minus-3.
• Lee Stempniak looks like a real keeper to receive top-six forward minutes. It’s also looking more and more evident that 20-year-old rookie Roman Horak fits in better as a No. 4 centre than Matt Stajan, when Mikael Backlund and Brendan Morrison return from injuries.
Horak has speed, offensive smarts, plays a dogged checking game and is better on faceoffs than Stajan, who isn’t cut out to be a checker.
• It’s all fine for Sutter and Feaster to say they’re going to avoid overworking Kiprusoff this season, but when the alternative is a very predictable Karlsson, that plan will have to be changed.
The “Calgary Tower” may be one of the league’s tallest stoppers at six foot five, but he effectively plays at four foot eight because he’s always down on his knees. The word got out early last season to shoot high on the butterfly goalie and that’s what every shooter with more than a split second is doing.
