The Calgary Flames are missing the work ethic that they need to become a playoff team once again.
CALGARY - Even though we all had our suspicions, you can't say you knew exactly what you were going to see play out with the Calgary Flames this season. There are just too many players who are going to go one way or the other, plus an organization and management team that have all reached the same crossroads.
But the one element - that Flames brand that just has to be there if this team is going to prove the hockey world wrong and become a playoff team again - is work ethic.
Brent Sutter's team is supposed to out work 'em. On a good night, you might tie Calgary when it comes to loose pucks and battles along the wall, but a visiting team is never supposed to outwork and out-compete the Calgary Flames the way the Florida Panthers did in a 3-0 shutout Thursday night at the 'Dome.
"We played a soft game," Sutter said afterwards, words not easily spoken if you know the man. "It was a stinker of a game."
For a team that is three games into a 1-2 season, the mood in the Flames dressing room after Thursday's game was reminiscent of December or January in a season gone wrong.
"Things are going great in practice. We just seem to be pressing in the games," said winger Alex Tanguay, who has five shots and nothing more to show in his return to Calgary.
He has been dog food thus far. Olli Jokinen has merely played the dog.
"To play this game, you have to be confident," Tanguay said. "None of us want the puck on our stick right now."
Shut out in two of three games this young season, incredibly, we're already approaching critical mass in Calgary. The lines have been busted up before any of the Big 3 mustered their first point of the season, and the power-play is brought to you by Dr. Seuss, just 1-for-13 so far.
"We're just uptight," said Tanguay of the scoreless trio, alongside Jokinen and Jarome Iginla. "We don't want to make plays, don't want to make a mistake. Certainly, that first goal is wearing on us."
Miikka Kiprusoff has been good. He'd be better if he could score.
And that train marked REBUILD that's rolling down the tracks towards Calgary? Who'd have thought they'd be lining up on the station platform on Oct. 14, as a full house of 19,289 at the Saddledome booed their team on and off throughout the, ahem, contest.
A young, fast-skating, creative group of Panthers were everything that the Flames aren't early in the 2010-11 season. It was boys against men, and it wasn't close. The boys won 3-0.
When the media entered the Flames dressing room, the players were still mostly dressed, again, a scene usually reserved for when there is snow on the ground.
What did Sutter say to them?
"What is said in the room stays in the room," he said, before imparting the theme: "It's about honesty and reality, and wanting to get it taken care of now, not in January or February.
"We never went to tough areas ... the first two periods we were nonexistent in that. It's Game 3, I understand that. But we've got to get this taken care of," Sutter said. "If you want to score goals, you've got to get into tough areas. You've got to dig in, want to get there and get it done."
"We lost too many battles."
Let the record show that the Iginla-Jokinen-Tanguay line lasted into its eighth period of the '10-11 season before Sutter had seen enough. Those of you who pointed out this summer that Jokinen and Iginla are both shooters and thus can't play together, you're winning on the early ballots.
"We need production," Sutter explained, after putting his top three lines in the blender in Period 2. "I'm not in a panic mode, but it's certainly a message that we need to be better."
Young, quick, creative, and willing to take you on one-on-one. There was one team at the Saddledome that played that way Thursday, and another that was caught in the vortex.
The other problem? The team up the road may not be quite as good yet, but they're stacked in all of the above.
Edmonton visits Saturday night.
Whether or not the Oilers beat Calgary again, fans here will look at their hated, rebuilding rivals, and for the first time in years they're thinking:
"Hmmmm…"
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