Michael Cammalleri goes into Saturday’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks with no goals and two assists in the Flames’ first five games.
A player going through a slump is nothing new but what is disturbing about Cammalleri’s is that he has only five shots on goal. When he is playing well, he has always been able to find the open areas in the offensive zone, but this year he has not found those good shooting lanes.
I would like to think that opposing teams are taking those spots away from him, but I think that he is a little slower in getting to them. It could be that he has lost a step or the commitment to get there is not as strong as it used to be.
People keep going back to the 2008-09 season when he scored a career-high 39 goals, but that was five years ago. If you look at his goal production since, it has dropped from 39 to 26 to 19 to 20 and zero so far this year. Cammalleri will get his goals, but let’s start to look at him as a 20-25 goal-scorer, not a 35-40 one.
As a player, if you feel you are getting open and not getting the puck, then it is time to take it upon yourself to take control and produce your own scoring chances. Something we have seen little of so far from Cammalleri.