The road trip is in the rear-view mirror.
And everyone’s ready to leave it there.
The Flames are set to insert a page break into the Word document that is their season story when the New York Rangers pay a visit to Scotiabank Saddledome tomorrow night. Get tickets
A day on from a frustrating defeat in Detroit, more than a dozen players hit the ice for an optional skate Monday afternoon with an eye on righting the ship in this week’s mini two-game home stand.
“We gave them a little bit of feedback and information as to what we saw, and then we challenged them to turn the page and make sure they’re ready to play tomorrow,” Head Coach Ryan Huska told reporters.
Defenceman Noah Hanifin acknowledged there are fixes that need to be made among a defence corps that, for now, is minus his regular partner Rasmus Andersson.
But the 26-year-old Hanifin pointed to some periods of play over the past week that can serve as a source of inspiration as well as a portent of things to come.
“We want to move past that last game, that wasn’t a good game for us at all. There have been flashes of good things here on the road trip,” Hanifin said.
“It takes everybody, that’s the way our team’s built, everybody needs to play on the same page.
“When we play fast, when we’re skating like we did in Buffalo and Washington, that’s when we can have some success.”
As for Andersson’s absence, the message is simple from the Head Coach and players alike: treat the near future as an opportunity to carry the mail, both on and off the puck.
“It’s an opportunity, similar to an injury, you have a chance to play maybe a different situation than you did before, so that’s the way we want our guys to look at it,” Huska said.
“Nobody’s going to come in and do the job Ras does, but another guy’s going to come in and be able to have impact the way he plays the game, to his identity.
“That’s what we need to see from all the guys that are going to be playing.”
Hanifin, who logged a game-high 25:11 of ice time Sunday in Detroit, agrees.
“This is a big opportunity for some guys to step up,” he said.
And the Bostonite might well be one of those players to seize more responsibility this week.
According to NHL Edge, the league’s new advanced stats engine, only five other blueliners across the circuit have skated more than the 32.59 kilometres covered by Hanifin this season.
His 12 shots on goal through the first half-dozen games of the campaign are more than double the league average for defencemen, too.
Huska says the 604-game veteran is entering a stage of his career where he’ll be counted upon more and more as the winter progresses.
“He’s kind of getting into that wheelhouse where he needs to be at his best now,” Huska commented.
“He’s got to continue to play with confidence, using his skating ability to get himself up in the rush and generate a little bit of offence.
“He’s got that ability.”
