This is Painful... But Not Forever

Being a fan of the Calgary Flames and watching our team is generally quite painful right now with the losses and goals against piling up. But it won't be this way forever. With a deep prospect pool, the end might not be near, but it's at least something to look forward to. We're going to get to all that more in this video, but first I want to welcome you to Flames Digest. I'm Mark Griffith. If you're new around here and you love the Flames, make sure you subscribe so you can stay up to date on all the latest news, updates, reports, and rumors revolving around your Calgary Flames. We would love to welcome you to the Flames Digest family. We're going to start it off with last night's game which was once again a little bit of a yikes moment here for the Flames as in case you missed it we continued the road trip another division opponent and another loss six to this time to Vegas it was one of those hey last goal wins games and we got the last goal and i kind of felt like that was a win in in of itself right there but uh yeah another one where you know i had maybe five percent hope going into this game that we'd win and by the time the first period was over that was at essentially zero or maybe even less than zero but we'll get into the box score here at least the guys who got on to the score sheet we'll start with Dustin Wolf once again another bad start are we blaming Wolf for the loss we're not just like we haven't really blamed Wolf for any of our losses this year they've all been team losses really but six goals against on 33 shots for the 6.00 goals against average and just an 8-18 save percentage once again a save percentage nowhere near what an NHL goalie should be at and you do gotta feel for Wolfie a bit again it's not like it's completely his fault but it's not like he's winning us any games either if we get into the guys who got onto the score sheet now Middleton gets a goal of all people wasn't expecting that Coronado got the late one as well to cut the lead to four it's the old Chris Paul mean but Pospisil, Fairbairn, Gritton and Frost all getting apples on the night as well so good that at least we had six guys get onto the score sheet tonight that's a little bit unusual Pospisil you can see there was throwing the body around with eight hits i'm not going to say anyone completely stood out to me i'm not going to say anyone was you know particularly terrible it was just overall once again a team loss and that's what we've just been piling up so far this year but hey at least there's still teams in the league with less wins than we have but Wolf is kind of the main man that i want to focus on because it's been painful for him lately and It's certainly been painful for us. And once again, he's only had one kind of quality start, I would say, so far this year, throwing this graphic together. Just one start where he had over .900 save percentage, and it was the only time where he had a goal saved versus expected, above saved versus expected, I should say. So that was the only one where he really, you know, stepped up to win the game. And he did make some clutch saves in that game in Anaheim, but couldn't do the same last night in Vegas, which is too bad. just an .834 save percentage on the year is really really terrible um a couple i guess interesting stats to pull up as well as how we got outplayed from Ryan Pike here so the first one is that after 40 the flames were out shooting vegas 14 to 13 at five on five so you know kind of going toe to toe with one of the best teams in the league at five on five but being outshot 13 to two otherwise so the special teams is what got us into trouble there you know Vegas got a shorthanded goal as well um and obviously we took quite a few penalties so we were killing some penalties as well so but we were actually through you know 40 minutes through the first two periods doing quite well five on five it's just we were getting destroyed otherwise and the scoreline uh certainly showed that the other one that i thought was interesting is uh how we are in Vegas i actually said before yesterday's game starts that we're going playing in Vegas it's a place where we haven't had much success we actually dropped to 2-12-2 Vegas all-time which is not a good record it's not like we're the only team that has struggled in Vegas the Golden Knights have been good ever since they became a team but 2-12-2 is really really bad so not a place where we've been too good in their history so far but obviously ours as well if we take a quick look here at the race for I guess the Western Conference here more so for us it's the race for the bottom of the standings but we're still tied on points with the LA Kings we have played more games than them of course but they're still looking for their first win whereas we at least got one against Anaheim but that's kind of how the standings are shaken out right now really interesting you know how good Utah's been what an offense they have they're kind of the wagon this year but Vegas of course you know top of the Western Conference so not surprising that we got smoked by them but it was still you know rough to watch and I kind of want to know what's your verdict from this game what hurt us the most you know we're going on this hurt pain theme for this game was it the goaltending was that our play outside of five on five as we as we just saw from Ryan Pike there was a bit of both wasn't something else you can absolutely feel free to let me know down below in the comments but while it's painful now we hope it won't always be is the end near or or is it kind of far it's it's somewhere in between I would kind of say for the Flames right now but I wanted to start by highlighting Cole Rassny there's a few guys I'm going to highlight in this one I'm not going to be highlighting all of our amazing prospects as much as I like talking about so many of these guys but feel free again to let me know down below if there's a guy you want me to talk about specifically or just someone you want to point out for the rest of the Flames Digest family but last year as we know Rassny had 35 points and 36 games was really good then he went on to get two goals in the season opener for the University of North Dakota and he does now have three points through two games already so above a point per game very small sample size but it seems like he's already you know elevating to that next level which is exactly what we wanted to see him do he couldn't get many goals last year just six goals in 36 games a lot of people were saying what happened to his scoring touch it seems like it's back this year he seems better than ever in a leadership role as well just so so excited for Rassny and what he is doing so far this year here's actually a quote from uh an opposing coach I believe it was post game about Rassny he said we had a blown coverage there at the end and left the wrong guy in front of the net and that is when Rassny was able to get some of those goals which is something that of course we do want to see so super pumped about that super pumped about Reshney in general moving on to another guy is of course Whittenbach another graphic here uh showing last year and then this year so last year as we know led the nation was the rookie of the year at 59 points in 40 games 25 of those being goals which is insane this year backing it up once again with eight points in four games to start the year three goals and five assists to jump start his sophomore season and again it's a small sample size but he's at two points per game a lot of people will say look at the competition he's playing against you know fair enough that's that's definitely a valid point that's still impressive to have eight points in four games in this young season he just looks insane and if we go back and remember his quote that he gave during the summer he said the goal is to play one more year and then head to Calgary at the end of the season so this is a guy who wants to be at the NHL level by the end of this year I mean of course he wants to go win a national championship but if that's not in the cards then he wants to be playing professional hockey not just professional hockey but NHL hockey with the Flames at the end of the year I know he said head to Calgary but he didn't mean with the Wranglers he definitely meant with the Flames which is super cool and another person who was speaking about all these guys back in the summer was Stephen Ellis when the World Junior Summer Showcase was going on he had this to say about Whittenbach he said Whittenbach looks like a legit top line winger for the USA and now while we I guess hope that he is once the World Juniors roll around in the winter over the holiday break we more so want him to be a legit top line winger at the nhl level for the flames for the future that's a guy that we definitely want maybe who knows on a line with Cole Reshney who we were just talking about what Whittenbach is someone to still be so excited about and i'm super excited to see what he does this weekend as well in his games another guy who we spoke about a lot in the summer but haven't been talking about him as much as the season has you know begun here overseas is Theo Stock Salius so he's actually had an awesome October just the past week I should say he had his first SHL multi-point game with two assists against Linkoping that's got to be the best team name I've ever heard in my life is that an area Linkoping that's awesome I'd love to know how that's pronounced in Swedish but he also very notably scored his first SHL goal when he opened the scoring against Bryna's at 12 and a half minutes of the second period so midway through that game but he got his first SHL goal which is super cool Stock Salius was again an absolute standout at the World Junior Summer Showcase and his development has continued into this young SHL season he's getting points he's scoring goals he's doing exactly what we want to see like Stephen Ellis Stephen Ellis said in the summer i should say he said Theo Stock Salius was sweden's top player too so talking about Wittenbach he had to point out that Stock Salius was sweden's top player as well that america's top player sweden's top player both Flames prospects he was also very high on Rasmus DaHLIN if you will remember about that as well now the next steps for Stock Salius that we can keep an eye out on is just that he can earn a regular SHL role which kind of seems like he's been doing here build on his first goal and multi-point game let's hope that these points continue to roll the development continues and the production ramps up and he's and also we can watch out for turning offensive flashes into sustained production like i'm saying so building off of you know getting some points but keeping it going as well sustaining that production will be the perfect piece of development for Stock Salius in this SHL season absolutely love watching him the last guy i wanted to point out was kind of our star boy here and it's Chase Harrington we have been speaking about him a little bit lately but last year he had 57 points in 61 games which wasn't too bad with Spokane obviously led the team but you know for someone drafted that high not being a point per game in junior hockey isn't exactly you know the most impressive thing well this year so far he had three goals and two assists in just one game against Everett when he scored his first WHL hat-trick in a 7-1 win over the Silver Tips and he's now at 13 points through seven games so almost at two points per game trying to be like Whittenbach but uh not quite again small sample size but he is just off to a roaring start in his new captaincy role absolutely love what he's watching actually speaking of his captaincy role was a quote from his coach he said he's got to be that guy and that was said when he was named captain essentially but guess what he is being that guy right now for Spokane it is awesome to watch so kind of a case here for our i guess our whole prospect pool our case for the future it's painful now but it's a path forward again that's the theme of the whole video here Rassny is producing and leading at North Dakota Whittenbach is building on his standout freshman year Stock Salius is progressing in the SHL Harrington is driving Spokane's offense development must turn promise into NHL impact that is what it all comes down to this is almost like a conclusion paragraph of this video but this is what it's all about for us these are just four guys we have plenty more in the system right now but this development all signs are really good right now it just needs to turn into NHL impact and then the end will be closer than many of us do expect now let's get into the comment of the day to wrap up this video as we love to do here on the channel comes from yesterday's video of course and this is a great one here from Matthew saying congrats on the website can't wait for tonight and especially this weekend to really dive into it again if you missed yesterday's video because i don't think it hit the algorithm very well but if you missed yesterday's video digest sports.com has been launched it was officially launched yesterday it is wicked for sports stats for games there's a mock trade machine it's just super super cool i implore you to go check it out let us know if there's any improvements that need to be made but honestly just tinker around with it it is a sports fan's dream it's more than just like basic stats you can look up the most intricate stats and it's super super cool so please go test it out feel free to compete against me in you know kind of those daily games as well because i always do them it's just super cool really recommend checking it out thank you so much for watching this video please subscribe if you like what you saw here today and have a wonderful rest of your day