Flames aiming to play more disciplined game

CALGARY, AB --Now Matt Stajan isn't apt to begin favouring a man-in-black colour scheme, pick up a signature D-35 Martin Acoustic Guitar and go all Johnny Cash.
But he walks the line.
They all do.
"We've gotta stay out of the box,'' lectured the veteran centreman. "We can't keep playing the way we have most of the season.
"There are things you can get away with and things you can't.
"There's the line and we can't continue to cross it.
"We're taking lots of penalties and if you do you're going to be behind the 8-ball all night.
"It's a focus in this room.
"It cost us the game (Thursday)."

A familiar refrain.
Shockingly, the Calgary Flames - hardly anyone's idea of a cast party of Walking Dead or a reincarnation of the early '70s Broad Street Bullies - continue to top the NHL's Bad Boy charts.
On quick inspection, they're not exactly the sort anyone would expect to be high on Santa's Naughty List.
Yet their 145 times shorthanded ranks 30th (that's last), and represents a full 48 more PKs than, for instance, the surprise-package Columbus Blue Jackets or 60 more than the loop's least-shorthanded outfit, Carolina.
Thanks to improved penalty killing lately, Calgary has risen to 19th in the PK percentage department to somewhat minimize the damage but, well, keep horsing around with blasting gelatin and …
"We're not the biggest team out there, by any means,'' said defenceman Deryk Englelland. "Sure we want to be aggressive, but we're not a dirty team. We're not being called for boarding or anything flagrant.
"We seem to take a lot of those hooking penalties, holding, things like that where if maybe you skate a little more.
"So that's something we should be able to fix."

Thursday, a pair of Anaheim power play goals were the tipping point in a playoff-style tussle at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
Renowned a big, strong, belligerent team, the Ducks goaded Calgary into an alley fight hardly worthy of the Marquis of Queensbury. And the tactic paid off.
In particular, Ryan Kesler's niggling hooks, hacks and self-satisfied sneers - aimed mainly at, surprise!, Johnny Gaudreau - drove the Flames to distraction, if not outright revenge.
"As a player, you have to know where that line is,'' said Stajan. "Kesler drew two penalties. He's good at it but we have to know when to react.
"Yeah, they take unnecessary hacks at Johnny and our skilled guys but we do the same to other teams' good players.
"That's just the way league is.
"There's a line. If you cross it, you get a penalty. If you stay right on the line, you get away with it a lot of times. We crossed it a little and Kesler walked the line pretty nicely for himself.
"You've just to find it. Ref-to-ref, it's different. But you've got to get a feel for the game. It's just something you've got to be conscious of."
The lines of protection for skilled players across the NHL are becoming more and more blurred as age-old forms of toughness give way to skill.
Given the busted pinkie via slash that cost Gaudreau 10 games already this season, it's understandable the Flames are a might sensitive about such potentially damaging shenanigans.
For Engelland, a veteran campaigner, there's a potential antidote to the mischief perpetrated by rabble-rousers of Kesler's ilk.
"The best way to play a guy like him, I've found, is to just leave him alone. He's going to play the same way no matter what. But if you don't fuel him up a bit he might not act up as much.
"It's when he knows he's getting under your skin that he'll do it more and more often, go after Johnny, Monny, guys like that, even harder, and we wind up taking penalties.
"There are ways to get even. But when we retaliate the wrong way, who wins?"
In the aftermath of the 3-1 loss, Flames' boss Glen Gultzan didn't verbally eviscerate Kesler for just "doing his job." He also, however, didn't feel his group got a fair shake in the calls department.
"I have the right to my opinion,'' he said Friday, "and I didn't think Hathaway's was a penalty and I didn't think Ferland's was a penalty. A headlock and a little bump aren't penalties, in my opinion.
"I think we handled it the way we should've. I mean, you look at our calls, you look at those two, which I didn't think were calls, we shot one over the the glass - that's three - and the other three we deserved.
"But that's my opinion."
New Year's Eve brings the Arizona Coyotes to the 'Dome. The past two games versus the Desert Dogs have been high-octane, belligerent affairs, much like Thursday's
"It's good that we're coming off a game like (Thursday) and we have to keep our level high,'' reasoned Gulutzan. "The higher you keep that level, the higher intensity you're at, that's when you get growth, that's when your team becomes better.
"The more playoff(-type) games, the more playoff atmosphere, the more dig-in, we get the better we're going to get as we go, especially with our younger players."
Although not quite at the 41-game mark just yet, the New Year nevertheless represents the beginning of the second-half push.

And a shorter queue to the penalty box from now to the finish line, as Stajan said, must be a top priority for these Flames.
"It's not a New Year's resolution or anything like that,'' he repeated. "But we can't keep taking this amount of penalties.
"Not if we want to be a playoff team."
So begin to more nimbly walk that line.
"Hockey,'' stressed centre Sean Monahan, among those invariably singled out for targeting by the opposition, "is a game of emotion. You've got to be smart but if someone's going after a guy like Johnny or Benny, we've got to step up. That stuff can't happen.
"At the same time, sometimes you've got to be ready to take it and hope the other team will get a call.
"You can always find a way to get 'em back. It's a long game, a long season.
"The worst punishment they could have is for you to win the game.
"Slashes, hacks, they're one thing.
"But losing, that's what hurts most."