Flames burning for their first win

By Olivia Lawrence
RP Show Intern

It is a Calgary Flames game day (Oct. 21), they are on the road facing the Detroit Redwings. The Flames are in need of their first win this season sitting at 0-2. 

Rod Pedersen invited Colour Analyst of the Calgary Flames, Peter Loubardias, onto Thursday’s episode of The Rod Pedersen Show to preview the Thursday night game. 

“The Flames have put 90 shots up Roddy in a couple of games, and have only scored four times,” said Loubardias. “I think the process has been good, but they haven’t generated as many high quality opportunities as they would have liked. Even in the game in Edmonton on Saturday, I thought five-on-five they did a really really nice job, but in both their games, they haven’t been able to take full advantage of the time when they have been better than their opponents.” 

The Flames will have their work cut out for them against the Red Wings who are currently sitting at 2-1. They had a close game against last year’s Stanley Cup Champions, the Tampa Bay Lightning. It was a close, high-scoring game, which went into overtime, but the Lightning ultimately came through and got the 7-6 win.

A question still surrounding the Flames is who their captain will be. The season is rolling, but the team has yet to announce who wears the ‘C’ on their jersey. Rod Pedersen asked Loubardias if he thinks the Flames will go the whole year without having one. 

“I don’t know if they’re going the whole year, but they’re not in any hurry, and I don’t think they should be in any hurry,” said Loubardias. When you lose someone like Mark Giordano, unless organically someone really really steps up, I don’t think that there’s a huge need.” 

Giordano played with the Flames for 15 seasons, and was the team captain for his final eight seasons. Giordano is now with the Seattle Kraken and was named their captain.   

“The Flames have a lot of veteran guys, MiKael Backlund has had the longest tenure, Chris Tanev has been a great fit, Monahan has worn an ‘A’, Tkachuk is wearing an ‘A’, so I don’t think there’s any hurry,” said Loubardias. “Where this team is at right now, I think it’s more leadership by committee anyway until the brass thinks ‘yup, that’s our guy and that’s where we’re going’.”

Puck-drop for the Flames and the Red Wings is at 5:30pm. This game starts a five game away trip for the Flames, let’s see if they can get off to a good start.