SLAM! Sports
SLAM! Hockey
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
COLUMNS
NHL
The Teams
Full Schedule
Monthly Schedule
Standings
Statistics
Rosters
Injury list
Movement
Trades
Hits Gallery
INTERACTIVE
JUNIOR
MORE HOCKEY
ALSO ON SLAM!
Saturday, November 6, 1999
It's zero hour
Iginla still desperately in search of elusive goal
Iggy Pop?
So far, make that Iggy Flop.
And don't go sympathetically letting him off the hook now. Manfully fight off whatever temptation remains to blame rust or rotten luck.
He's surely logged enough minutes by now to locate his game legs, re-discover that indefinable timing they all prattle on about.
The time is overdue, Iginla knows, to start popping a few. Iggy, start being a piggy.
"I don't expect anybody to cut me any slack just because I missed the exhibition games," said Iginla yesterday after practice. "I've played 11 games now and I should have scored some goals.
"There's no excuse.
"I've got to be better."
More prolific, certainly. As the Flames go in search tonight of back-to-back wins, a trick they've failed to master yet this season, a goal now and again from the guy who led 'em in that particular department last year wouldn't undermine the cause any.
Right now, he's neck-and-neck with Grant Fuhr and Freddie Brathwaite in the goal-scoring department, and Brathwaite has seven fewer starts.
At this rate, he isn't going to collect many bonuses in that incentive-laden $5-million US, three-year deal he signed Oct. 9.
And with the offensive options for this club, uh, shall we say 'limited', his re-emergence as a goal scorer is irrevocably intertwined.
This 'win here, two losses there, gritty come-from-behind tie last night' business isn't going to bite too deeply into the deficit they're hoping to make up in the Western Conference standings.
"We need," coach Brian Sutter said sternly, "to get on a roll."
Which means continue building tonight, in their own house, where they're a dispiriting, well-chronicled 1-3-2. At the 'Dome they've been more along the lines of Homer, as in Simpson, than homers.
Like ... Doh!
And coach Sutter, jaw set and eyes blazing, blames a lot of their Calgary-based woes on the comfort zone his skill players -- Val Bure and his 10 goals notwithstanding -- feel in familiar confines. He feels they lack a measure of desperation, of passion, here.
They'd best be advised to bring a healthier appetite to the rink.
"Being at home," Sutter charges, "your offensive players have a tendency to relax; to think 'Ah, we've got last change, it's not gonna be that hard ...' When in fact, being at home makes it harder. You don't think the other guys down the hall aren't planning how to stop Bure and Iginla and Morris when they're in our building? That's how you prepare for any road game -- shutting down the home team's top people. Doesn't matter whether it is Dallas or Detroit or Nashville.
"Take a look at the game the other night. The Predators had Fitzgerald and Scott Walker out there when Val's line was on. On the fly, on a change. Whatever.
"Every team plays more defensively on the road. There's more traffic, more holding up. More bodies to fight through."
At the moment, Iginla's problem is as much fighting through barriers of his own making as those put in front of him by the opposition.
"Last game I felt good," said Iginla optimistically. "The way we won it" -- coming back from 4-2 down to prevail in overtime -- "gave everybody a boost.
"So much of this game is confidence. When you go through hard times, nothing seems to go right. But score a goal and that often leads to a bunch.
"You've just got to keep at it and wait for your luck to change.
"Sooner or later, I'm going to get one."
Sooner, if it's not too much trouble, would be preferable.
 Bert's back on blades Blue Jays boot game Bombers drop Peterson Felicien rebuilds race | Visit our Polls Archive |