So, the Flames phoned it in from GM Place tonight, and I wonder how this will affect the team’s psyche going into the final three games.

Brian suggested to me this evening that the Flames could use a good wake-up call like this right now. I think there’s some merit to this, especially since this loss bumps Calgary down to seventh place. This team now ill-afford to sleep through games, and this should give them some much needed urgency. At the same time, we’re now starting to string losses together (one more and I’ll call it a streak). That’s the kind of trend that a team needs to avoid ahead of the post season. Lately I’ve been thinking back to the late season losses last season that saw us barely hang onto the eighth seed. I fear that a similar trend would yield similar first-round results this season.

Could there be a more satisfying way to buck the trend than to also devastate the Oilers’ playoff hopes on Tuesday night? I can’t think of one. Let’s hope that we can pull out a big win on Rexall ice.

One notable positive that I did see tonight was Keenan’s use of the bench after the game was out of hand. Dustin Boyd was given ample ice time, especially on the penalty kill, and displayed a competence out there that should earn him more ice time in the coming games. Outside of that, though, I’m glad I opted to enjoy the Hurricanes’ win tonight rather than sit through the Flames’ performance in its entirety.

In the wake of Jonathon Roy’s suspension, Bob McKenzie has summed up my thoughts exactly on fighting in hockey.

Coming from someone who’s played the game at a competitive level and always in leagues where fighting is banned, let me tell you, you will never be able to keep fighting entirely out of the game. Game misconducts and certainty of suspension doesn’t dissuade 16 year olds from getting involved in a scrap when the game gets emotional. I’ve been a player in those fights, and I’ve been a linesman trying to break up those line brawls.

Roy committed a straight-up dumb attack on an unwilling opponent. He was suspended. The circle of life continues. And don’t think the Sagueneens will forget; this rivalry has more fighting to come, whether the Q tries to ban it or not.

For me the litmus test regarding fighting in hockey is this: Do fans cheer when a fight breaks out? We all know the answer is a resounding "yes". It’s emotional and it’s entertaining. Let the willing combatants duke it out, and suspend players for attacks and showboating like Roy.

I’ve been away for the blog for a few days, enjoying a brief vacation in the Rockies. Unfortunately I was on the wrong side of the Kicking Horse Line, so was subject to SportsNet Pacific. It’s good to be back to SportsNet West this evening.

And while we’re at it, it’s good to have the big three back as well. Not that they’ve really gone anywhere lately, but Iginla, Phaneuf, and Kipprusoff have been playing outstanding hockey lately. With Iginla in striking distance of his single season scoring mark, Phaneuf scoring both pretty goals as well as his trademark rifle, and Kipper providing solid backing, the Flames look to be in good shape for the playoffs.

Still, the 40-minute efforts are a little troubling to me. Being badly outplayed for 20 minutes can mean the difference between wins and losses. Once this team can start playing full 60-minute outings, I think they will be contenders in the post-season.

There’s a major no-brainer happening in the NHL right now. I’d like to think that the no-brainer here is the need to alter the touch icing rule to prevent injuries. It appears, however, that the real no-brainer is the collective NHL board of governors who refuse to revisit the value of this rule.

I’ve long been of the ‘abolish touch icing’ camp, simply because I think the risk it exposes players to is far greater than the value of the attacking player beating the icing. Sure it can be an exciting play, but I feel that the pro-touch icing folks are exaggerating its value to the game. I hadn’t considered that a compromise was possible to retain that excitement while reducing risk to player safety. Bob McKenzie has discussed the USHL hybrid rule on his blog and I have to admit that it’s a pretty satisfying compromise for me.

In the USHL, a linesman must make a judgment call on any potential icing. If the defending player gets to the faceoff dot or hash marks first or the defender and the attacker arrive there in a dead heat, the whistle is blown immediately for automatic icing.

Now, while I don’t think that the touch icing race is as exciting as its proponents claim, I don’t have a problem with these races if we can minimize the injury risk that currently comes along with it. Seeing now that it doesn’t have to be a black-and-white argument, I would like to see the NHL consider some such alternatives to protect its players.

I think changing this rule is a no-brainer, and I suspect that Al MacInnis, Mark Tinordi, Marty Reasoner, Marco Sturm, Mike Wilson, and now Kurtis Foster might agree with me.

Watching tonight’s game I’m reminded of the old Don Henley song “How Bad Do You Want It?” The song answers that question with “not bad enough.” Outshot 38-18 by a team that’s nine points back of a playoff spot? The Flames aren’t looking like a hungry team lately, and it’s got me a little scared.

The Flames’ inability to keep star players off of the score sheet is more than a little disconcerting. Ovechkin, Kovalchuck, and Nash have all burned Calgary recently. The formula seems pretty simple: have a look at the opposing team’s stats before the game and pay a little more attention to shutting down the key players. Obviously you can’t shut guys like these down 100%, but right now we’re at the opposite end of the spectrum, and that needs to improve.

That doesn’t begin to address the paltry 18 shots on goal, but I think a stronger commitment to defense would be a welcome starting point.

Some other thoughts that came to mind during the game:

• Ken Hitchcock is sure looking old without that mustache
• The SportsNet announcers called the Blue Jackets “Nashville” when they were talking about Rick Nash. I wonder how often that happens.
• Iginla was anything but clutch today. He was absolutely invisible in the final ten minutes.

So, does Chris Simon have a point when he complains about being unfairly treated by the NHL’s disciplinarian? Is there indeed a double standard applied to star players?

Chris Pronger Suspensions

• 1995 - 4 games for slashing Pat Peake in the throat
• 1998 - 4 games for slashing Jeremy Roenick in the head
• *** 2000 Hart Trophy Winner (League MVP) ***
• 2001 - 1 game for leaving the bench to fight Kelly Buchberger
• 2002 - 2 games for cross-checking Brenden Morrow in the head
• 2004 - 1 game for kicking Ville Nieminen
• 2007 - 1 game for driving Tomas Holmstrom into the glass
• 2007 - 1 game for a headshot on Dean McCammond
• 2008 - 8 games for stomping on Ryan Kesler

Chris Simon Suspensions

• 1997 - 3 games for alleged racial slur towards Mike Grier
• 2000 - 1 game for cross-checking Peter Popovic in the throat
• 2001 - 2 games for elbowing Anders Eriksson
• 2004 - 2 games for cross checking and punching Ruslan Fedontenko
• 2004 - 2 games for kneeing Sergei Zubov
• 2007 - 25 games for a stick attack on Ryan Hollweg
• 2007 - 30 games for stomping Jarko Ruutu

I find it interesting that the five suspensions immediately following Pronger’s Hart Trophy win totaled six games missed, including a mere two games for a cross-check to the head, and a single game for kicking an opponent.The argument from the Colin Campbell has been that the context influences the punishment. Simon’s stomp on Ruutu happened after the play and away from the puck, while Pronger’s stomp on Kesler took place during a hockey play. Does that make Pronger’s act less severe than Simon’s? Not if you ask the NHL’s head office. My opinion, though, is that in the case of severe offenses like these, handing one repeat-offender a suspension more than three times longer than another repeat-offender does reek of double standard; 20-25 games would’ve been a more suitable punishment for Pronger.

But then again, Pronger’s a former Oiler, and Simon’s a former Flame, so maybe I’m just biased.

I don’t have a lot of beefs with the rules of hockey these days. I could stand to see the instigator rule disappear, and I think the trapezoid behind each net is unnecessary, but these are minor quibbles that I can live with. There is, however, one big issue that really gets under my skin: overtime/shootout losses. The issue to me isn’t so much that a point is awarded for overtime/shootout losses, but that it causes some games to be worth three points, while others are worth two. I’ve taken enough finance and accounting classes to be sufficiently bugged by that imbalance.

And so, after fretting over this for the past several seasons, I decided to run the numbers and see what the impact of the single point OT/SO loss. Perhaps there are teams who are really getting shafted by the current standings, or perhaps it is just the nerds like me who are bothered by this. Let’s take a look, shall we?

In the chart below, you will find the NHL standings through the end of March 16, and comparison standings for two other alternatives:

1. The ‘3-Point Game’
   In this format, a regulation time winner would be awarded three points, while overtime/shootout winners would earn two points. Overtime/shootout losses would continue to be worth a single point, and regulation losses worth none.
2. Straight Win-Loss
   The points system could be eliminated entirely and, much like MLB and the NBA, base the standings solely on number of wins, regulation or not.

NHL Standings (through March 16/08)

Big picture: Only in one place do we see a difference in who makes the playoffs (Nashville bumping Vancouver in one instance). We see a bit of bouncing amongst the tighter divisions (Ottawa/Montreal, Minnesota/Colorado/Calgary), but not much that’s really significant. The seedings would get stirred up a fair bit in both conferences if we applied the 3-point game. In fact, only two teams would retain their seeding in the Eastern Conference. The one big move that we notice is pretty predictable: those pesky Oilers. Edmonton is the one team in the NHL who has won more games in overtime/shootout than in regulation this year, and the 3-point game would not be friendly to them, bumping them to 14th in the conference.

Theory debunked? Is my taste for stats just being fueled by my hatred of the Oilers? Before we settle on any conclusions, let’s apply the theory to another league: the WHL.

2007-2008 WHL Final Standings

Again, if we look at the big picture of who makes the playoffs, there is no difference between who falls on either side of the cut-off. In this instance, though, there’s a pretty big mix-up in the Eastern Conference seeding when using the 3-point games: Brandon up from sixth to second (by virtue of winning their division), Regina down from second to fifth, and Kootenay down from fifth to seventh. Only a single playoff match-up (Calgary vs. Moose Jaw) would remain in-tact. In the Western Conference, Spokane would be the only major benefactor, leapfrogging Tri-City and Vancouver to win the top seed.

So what sort of conclusions can be drawn from this comparison? Here’s what I’ve boiled it down to:

• Straight win-loss records don’t vary too much from the existing 2-point win format.
• The 3-point win format is more likely to have an impact on the standings.
• The line between playoff and non-playoff teams doesn’t shift much, if at all, regardless of the format applied, but the 3-point game can re-arrange the seedings noticeably.
• I still hate the Oilers.

I’ve always been a stats guy. In fact, when I was 10 I used to goto Jr. A. games in Olds and take stats on a notepad. Some things never change.

After Jarome Iginla broke Theoren Fleury’s goals record, I took a look at the stats and made note of the fact that Fleury reached his record in a bunch fewer games than Iginla had (791 vs. 847). It made me wonder what the impact of NHL goal scoring trends might’ve had on these two players’ statistics.

So off to the magical internets I went to find some statistics. Using the 1988-89 number of 7.37 goals/game, I standardized Fleury and Iginla’s goals per season to level the playing field, statistically. This is pretty simple and unscientific, but bear with me, it’s just for fun anyways.

Here are the numbers that I came up with (statistics up-to-date through March 12th game):

Based on these stats, if NHL goal scoring were on a consistent pace, Iginla would’ve broken the goal scoring record in the first half of last season, and he would’ve accomplished a noticeably higher goals per game average than Fleury. Not that I want to read too deeply into this or anything. Both Fleury and Iginla have made great contributions to the Flames organization, and will forever be a part of the Flames legacy. Of course, those NHL scoring trends don’t necessarily indicate that individual player scoring would all inflate proportionally, so we can throw the science right out the window.

But hey, that doesn’t make crunching these numbers any less fun, right?

Tonight is the night that Theoren Fleury’s franchise record for goals has fallen. A power play goal from the slot — not an uncommon play for Jarome Iginla — moved the captain to the top of the all-time Flames goal scoring list.  Sure, we knew the record would fall eventually, and we knew Iginla would be the one to break it.

There’s not too much to say on this topic: the greatest Flame of all time, now solidifying that claim with his statistics. Congratulations Jarome. I’m glad to have witnessed this goal, along with so many of the prior 364. Keep them coming!