As I’ve mentioned in some previous posts, I’ve finally moved back to Calgary. Since I’m now situated in Alberta, I thought now would be a great time to touch on what’s now the ‘hometown’ team for me.

Why am I writing about the Flames? Well, Sun Tzu laid it out pretty cleanly:

“If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.”

While it may not be enjoyable to do so, I consider it a necessary evil.

As I wrote back in April, I wondered as to how much more patience Ken King has for Darryl Sutter. Much like the Oilers and their 80s glory days, you have to wonder how long you can bank on a Cinderella trip to the Cup Finals. Post-lockout, the Flames have yet to make it past the first round, despite being heavily favored to go deep in the playoffs year after year.

I talked about how there should be a management change or that the core may need to be addressed. The amount of players that have come in to ‘help out Iggy’ and haven’t stuck is staggering. They include the likes of Kristian Huselius, Owen Nolan, Alex Tanguay, Mike Camalleri, Todd Bertuzzi and Olli Jokinen. All, including Jokinen, did not manage to stick.

Things would be different, I was told. Brent Sutter would come in and shake things up, something which the first Sutter, Jim Playfair and Mike Keenan were unable to do. The Flames have Jay Bouwmeester now. Defense wins championships, after all.

Well, things are certainly different, but not necessarily for the better. According to sportsclubstats.com the Flames currently have a 41.3% chance of making the playoffs now. This, in the midst of a nine game losing skid that has seen some absolutely embarrassing losses handed out, including the now legendary 9-1 drubbing by the San Jose Sharks.

Despite the rosy spin that some Calgary writers are trying to put on this skid and despite the comparisons being made to their trip to the Finals back in 85/86, things so far have to be seen as a disaster for the Flames and their faithful. (Keep in mind that 16 of a possible 21 teams would make the playoffs back then, as compared to 15 out of a possible 30 in the present day.)

And yes, I’m aware that the Canucks went through a similar losing skid last season and perservered, but I honestly don’t see it happening with the Flames for a variety of reasons. The biggest being that the Flames aren’t suffering from any significant injuries, something which contributed to the Canucks losing streak last year.

Rather than looking like the Canucks of last season, this year’s Flames are really starting to remind me of the 05/06 Canucks. That was a team that looked really solid on paper, yet failed to make the playoffs due to a bunch of off-ice problems (including a post-Moore Todd Bertuzzi.) That was a year where the coach had lost the dressing room, there were rumors of a huge split in the locker room and the team was overwhelmingly underwhelming. All they need is for Kiprusoff to go down with a season ending injury and it would be complete.

I also highly doubt that the Flames are going to be trading for another Joe Mullen type player and despite Backlund looking good in his callup, he’s not going to have the same impact that Mike Vernon did when he was recalled from the minors. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the wheeling and dealing and am positive that a lack of quality prospects has contributed significantly to the Flames woes.

Sutter’s desire to make a ‘big deal’ and push the team over the top has resulted in him being led astray from his team’s winning ways. The squad that made it to the Cup Finals wasn’t a group of individuals, it was a group, period. They worked as a unit (remember those ‘hard hats’ that the Flames gave to each other?) and, by trying to build a ‘big’ offense or an ‘all name’ defense, Sutter has gotten the team away from their identity. Again to compare to the Canucks, the early days of the WCE-era Canucks had a real ‘Us vs. The World’ mentality to them, by the time 05/06 came around, I got the sense that both the team and the fans had some rather high expectations about them. That hubris was part of what led to their downfall and it’s refreshing to see the Gillis-era Canucks coming together as a close-knit group that seem to have shades of the ‘Us vs. Them’ attitude that the early WCE had.

Take Mikael Samuelsson’s profanity laced tirade, the team defending Burrows or guys like Shane O’Brien and Darcy Hordichuk having that sense of camaraderie with the rest of the squad. Heck, go back last season to see how the Canucks circled the wagons during their losing streak to see how they stuck it out together. You can see the Canucks working as a unit and it’s translating to success. The Flames? A bunch of random millionaires with no real cohesive identity.

The former ‘hardest working team’ in the NHL is now rife with problems, so much so that, if you believe rumours, they’ve gone the route of Metallica and hired a counsellor to work through their feelings. Something is not right with the Flames. As a Canucks fan, I love it. For Flames fans, though? It’s got to be confusing and frustrating.

There are clear problems with the core, for whatever reason. Darryl Sutter hasn’t improved this team, despite all the trades, coach firings and free agent signings he’s made. He’s made some rather big mistakes: I again point to the lack of a quality backup, a move that has hamstrung the Flames during crunch time. I also point to the fact that the Flames have no real prospects in the system and won’t be for a while thanks to Sutter dealing away draft picks. Again, this harkens back to the Canucks where the lack of players in the system really hurt the team’s future and came back to bite them.

Tonight’s game against the Oilers, a battle of futility between two former greats will mark the first win in over twenty games for whatever squad manages to eke out a victory. If the Flames manage to lose tonight, I’d imagine that the Sutter Era in Calgary will over soon.