Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli discussed the latest struggles of the Calgary Flames on "Daily Faceoff Live."
Tyler Yaremchuk: Off the ice yesterday, Nikita Zadorov made some waves in Calgary. Too many individuals playing for themselves is what Zadorov said yesterday. He also had an interesting line at the end of his availability where he said last season was different, it was Darryl (Sutter). Now there’s no Darryl so there’s no excuses, you don’t like hard coaches, you don’t like soft coaches, you don’t like good coaches, it’s a new day league.
Those are some scathing comments from Zadorov and I think it speaks to maybe some tension in that Flames locker room?
Frank Seravalli: This was certainly eye-opening for me, look, you were with me last year at All-Star weekend when we had Nazem Kadri on the pod and he said the Flames will make the playoffs if we start playing as a team and it was a three-second soundbite but to me it said so much more than that. And to hear this now in the first couple weeks of the season. It was kind of fascinating to hear media ask Blake Coleman about it after Calgary’s game that they lost to the New York Rangers last night and he was like well sometimes frustration gets the best of us.
No, that’s not frustration. It’s great that you tried to sweep that under the rug but this is a player calling out his teammates. We don’t know which ones in specific but it’s clear to me that something is off kilter in the Calgary Flames room. Whether its lack of chemistry, cohesion, I don’t know if there’s some personal things, some guys don’t like each other, they just haven’t gotten in sync playing with each other, whatever it might be, it’s certainly a red flag in terms of what happens next for the Calgary Flames.
This is a team that entered the year with expectations to bounce back, that’s the way we’ve seen this team as a good team that really underachieved last year. So far this year we’ve seen a team that is lifeless at times, a team that certainly hasn’t brought it’s work ethic to the rink on a consistent basis. And it leaves a lot of questions marks of where this team goes next as it’s still trying to sign all of these players that are pending unrestricted free agents including Elias Lindholm.
We heard some conversation earlier in the week that Noah Hanifin made progress and could be getting closer. I think that kind of hit a bit of a snag. We’re in a spot now where the Flames do not want to become the New York Islanders of the West. Which is a team that is totally locked into a group for term and dollars that can’t quite get over the hump. And it seems to me they’re a team that needs to diagnose some of the issues they have.
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