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Monday, November 1, 1999
Home's not so sweet
Cuddled up in their own beds this morning for the first time in two weeks, you couldn't have blamed the Calgary Flames for staying beneath the covers rather than brave the ride to the hockey rink.
After all, that ride back to the Saddledoom is only going to remind them that their home rink has become a frigid wasteland.
Home sweet home it is not.
Winless in five games at home this season already, sub-.500 last season at home, the Flames know only too well that a losing record at the Canadian Airlines Saddledome is a surefire recipe for a missed playoff spot. Again.
There are reasons for optimism as the team returns, but you have to look long and hard to find them.
Coach Brian Sutter points to the four losses on the road, three by narrow 2-1 margins.
And then he points to the team's sparkling play in the final two periods of most games, subtracts the bad starts and all of a sudden you're thinking this team has what it takes to win. But can anyone assume that a 3-8-2 team is on a roll?
Not likely. Sutter's selective math is but a smoke screen. Not even he knows what is on the other side, a team on the verge of winning or one that is making it as close as they can already.
With their next four games at home, the Flames are well aware of the importance of the current challenge.
Yet, early in the season, the optimism is still present in the dressing room.
"We have to play for 60 minutes and we have been starting slow," explains sniper Val Bure. "Once we turn it up, it is hard to play with us. We skate, we hit, we are a team that can do everything. With Grant (Fuhr) making big saves, he helps us a lot. We have to look at the work ethic as the key for us.
"If you look at how we play at home and how we play on the road, I don't know if it's the guys relaxing on the road and playing their game but at home we tighten up and try to play fancy.
"We have to play like the team we are and not try to change for the home crowd."
Okay, so you just lost four of six and you don't want to change?
Bure's point is eventually, the breaks will go the Flames way. Those 2-1 losses in Tampa, Atlanta and Toronto will be wins.
But only if the team sticks to Sutter's mantra of a tireless work ethic and committed team game.
"When you play this hard, it is frustrating to work so hard for nothing," says Bure. "Luck should be on your side when you work this hard. The good teams do work hard and over the long run, things bounce their way so we just have to keep with it."
Bure gets support from Fuhr, who sees the team developing confidence but still needing to eliminate the first-period breakdowns that have contributed to the team's demise.
"I don't think we really realize how good we can be," said Fuhr. "Part of the problem is that we wait to see how the other team reacts to us and it takes us a while to get going."
The Flames did appear to have settled their first-period penalty woes, although it was a bad penalty to Cale Hulse that led to Toronto's first period goal in their last game.
And then there is the offence. Calgary scored one goal in four of six road games.
But the other side of the equation, the most goals allowed by any team in the NHL, is the one that Sutter says is most distressing.
"Everybody asks us about offence," says Sutter.
"We don't have a team that we can play firewagon hockey and open it up.
"But is there confidence in how we played (on the road trip)? Yeah, there is nothing to be ashamed of."
No, the shame comes with the home record.
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