1. Into The Wild
The Flames landed in the Twin Cities just before suppertime Wednesday, with a quick spin in Saint Paul against the Wild on tap for this evening.
It's Calgary's final road game before the Olympic break, and just four contests remain before the League takes a pause for the Winter Games.
But tonight at Grand Casino Arena, the Flames have a chance to do something that only a handful of teams (the Kings, Devils and Sharks) have done so far this season: win their season series against the Wild. But Calgary will have to forge on - both here and in their next three upcoming home games - without a big piece of their forward corps.
Blake Coleman last pulled on a Flames sweater Jan. 8 in Boston and after he was absent at Wednesday morning's practice at the Scotiabank Saddledome, Head Coach Ryan Huska confirmed Coleman will not be available for selection until after the Olympics.
A sizeable loss, no doubt - Coleman's 13 goals rank second on the club, not to mention the other intangibles - but Huska sees these next four games as a chance for someone new to help take a bit stronger hold of the reins.
"I think what he (Coleman) brings on the ice is invaluable for our team, but if you can find another word to describe what he brings off the ice, I would probably use that word. Like, he’s an important piece of our team for sure," Huska explained. "So we miss him, but I look at it, too, this is an opportunity for someone else to try to grab hold of a little bit of the leadership role that he plays with, a forward to grab hold of a ‘play it right, every shift’ mentality that Blake has.
"This is an opportunity for people. When you’re missing a key person like that, you want other people to seize that opportunity."
And one person Huska was asked about in particular, was forward Joel Farabee. The winger is approaching the one-year anniversary of the trade that brought both he and Morgan Frost to Calgary, and Huska likes the way Farabee's game is trending.
"I thought Joel’s last game that he played was his best game in a little bit for us," Huska said. "He was skating, he had the puck a lot, he kept his game very simple and he was direct, and that’s what we’re asking out of a lot of our players right now, is to play that style.
"He kind of fits the Blake Coleman mould, for me, a little bit. He does so many things the right way and he’s very much a team guy, and wants to help win in any way he can. The offence isn’t the only thing that we expect out of him, there’s so much more like what you’ve seen on the penalty-kill for example, or when we have a big face-off in our own zone, he’s typically one of the wingers that will go out there."
So tonight, in a tough building, against a tough opponent, the Flames will find out just who will step up to Huska's challenge.
Providing that grit, that determination - leadership - to help the squad try and take two points from where the Wild things are.
