- Wes Gilbertson of the Calgary Sun: Flames head coach Brent Sutter takes the blame for Flames missing the playoffs for the 3rd straight year, though he hinted that there is plenty of blame to go around.
“I don’t really want to get into that right now. There are reasons. They will have to be addressed once the season is over,” Sutter said. “We will go from there. Again, it’s not something that just transpired here. It’s grown. And at some point in time, it has to be addressed head on.”
The Flames core group of Jay Bouwmeester, Mark Giordano, Jarome Iginla and Miikka Kiprusoff have been around for all 3 of their playoff misses. Gilbertson thinks this team needs more than a tinker.
“When you aren’t in the playoffs, it’s not good enough,” Sutter said. “There’s reasons for it. We were inconsistent. There were different times throughout the year, in terms of team confidence and taking a step to becoming a good situation, where you don’t deal with this at the end of the year. We failed on it. We never took the stand that this thing would put us over the hump.
“I’ve played on a lot of winning teams, and you know what you need. At certain times throughout the year, there are times you need it — and we never got it.”
- Kristen Odland of the Calgary Herald: The Flames will have some RFAs to deal with this summer: Blake Comeau, Leland Irving, Mikael Backlund and Blair Jones. Both Comeau and Jones have said they hope they are brought back.
- George Johnson of the Calgary Herald: The biggest question about the Flames offseason will involve Jarome Iginla. Iginla has a no-trade clause so he won’t be moved unless he wants to. Johnson noted:
He’s obviously extremely comfortable here. This is his team, his town. The safe, familiar place to be. But at what point does getting one more legit shot at a championship before he’s done override comfort? Iginla wants desperately to do just that in Calgary, but given what we’re seeing, and closing in on his 35th birthday, that window is now virtually shut.
Jarome Iginla said:
“It’s still (up) in the air,’’ he protested. “I don’t think it’s a pride thing. You just want to be part of a winner, be part of the playoffs. That’s what we all want to do. I look at myself and I know I didn’t have my best year. There’s going to be a lot of motivation. That’s my approach: Play hard this last week and look to rebound.
“I still think the organization has a lot of good things going for it. This year, when guys went down, everybody said the cupboard was bare, we didn’t have anybody to step in. And you saw a lot of guys that did, gave us a shot to be there, in that position, the last 10 games.
“So I still think there’s a lot of good things (happening). I think it’s going in the right direction.