Cam Talbot saw no action in the last Calgary Flames intra-squad game.
He sat on the bench every three periods and carried most of his gear, which was covered with a ball cap and a face covering, while watching David Rittich throughout the game.
At the other end of the ice, Jon Gillies and Artyom Zagidulin shared the action.
Is Talbot an injury?
Does the club rest on Tuesday in Edmonton and then against Winnipeg as a starter?
Or does that mean that Rittich is her husband now?
Coach Geoff Ward later said he wanted to see the other two goalkeepers and suggested that we read nothing in that is difficult given the importance of the decision.
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The camp officially closed on Saturday, but the Calgary Flames still have a few questions to answer before they open their qualifying series against Winnipeg on August 1st.
Let’s examine the three largest:
Who starts on the net?
It can very well matter who plays better against Edmonton on Tuesday when Ward said he tends to split the time between the two boys.
“I think it’s important that we see both boys under live balls and see where they are,” he said, further suggesting that they hadn’t made their decision to start in Game 1 yet.
“We are happy with the way the goalkeepers played.”
In these areas, it was pretty well documented that before Christmas, Rittich was the team’s MVP and shouldered the league’s heaviest load admirably.
For the third time in a row, he sagged in the second half and in the new year recorded the second highest goals against the average (3.55) and the second lowest saving percentage (0.889) in the league.
At that point, Talbot was shining and putting together a few brilliant months that made him an easy starter if the playoffs hadn’t been interrupted for four months.
Talbot has 15 playoff games while Rittich is still waiting for his first taste of playoff. It is not insignificant.
If all things are the same, management would probably like to give Rittich the keys to see if he is actually ready for the challenge. He is under contract with the Flames for another year and is internally classified as the goalkeeper of the future.
But is that the future now?
Or do you start Talbot and risk that he strengthens his shares as a pending UFA that you want to sign again at the end of the season?
Still, you can bet that everyone who makes the decisions has only one consideration in mind – which goalkeeper gives him the best chance of winning now.
Give Talbot the advantage at camp and during the scrimmage, which is not irrelevant as trainers and management try to figure out who can jump into the fight as sharply as possible.
Both are popular in the room and the duo has a great relationship, which means that every decision made doesn’t affect team chemistry.
Expect the starter to have a short leash no matter who it is.
It says: Talbot should and will start.
Jeff Marek and Elliotte Friedman talk to a lot of people all over the hockey world and tell the audience everything about what they heard and what they think about it.
Will Juuso Valimaki play?
Very doubtful.
While speculation has spread that the 21-year-old classic won’t get his first taste of action in the playoffs this season, his status has remained a closely guarded secret of the general manager, who refuses to speak Finnish to the media Blueliner.
The pairings up to this point appear to be set in stone, as Mark Giordano and TJ Brodie headliner a backend with Noah Hanifin with Rasmus Andersson and Derek Forbort with Erik Gustafsson.
Oliver Kylington and Michael Stone have played many NHL games this season and are able to intervene if necessary. Valimaki remains pretty far down in the depth cards as he has spent the year rehabilitating from knee surgery.
On Friday, he was paired with black ace Alexander Yelesin, which is another sign that he’ll stay on the shelf for the rest of the season.
As good as he looked at the camp, how effectively could he make his season debut with everything on the line?
He is still the future defense star of the Flames, which is all the more reason to protect him and be extra careful when he returns.
If he plays, the team would have to protect him in the draft expansion from Captain Mark Giordano and everyone else the team could sign this summer. Not ideal.
The only way to consider playing it is if the flames get into injury problems during a deep run.
It says here: He will watch from afar.
How will Calgary use Sam Bennett?
Outside of Milan Lucic, nobody on the Flames list had more success in the playoffs than Bennett.
As a rookie, he raised his eyebrows in 2015 and acted as a human wrecking ball against Vancouver on his playoff debut when he was an integral part of the team’s only series win since 2004.
His three goals and limitless energy in three games caused the Canucks attacks and many believed that the fourth choice would be a star overall.
Two years later, he did it again with two goals when firing the Flames in four games. Last year he was one of the only bright spots against Colorado, leading the team with five goals and points.
This number corresponded to the number of points collected in the entire top row.
Earlier this week Bennett repeated how much he enjoyed the post-season physicality and emotions – two aspects of the game that the Flames seem to miss the most each spring.
How do the flames ensure that Bennett has ample opportunity to leave his mark on this series?
Well, an early Derek Ryan injury opened the door for Bennett to switch from the fourth line winger to the middle of the third line for the first two scrimmages.
He responded with three points in his first game in an eight-point game between Milan Lucic and Dillon Dube.
Sure, intra-squad points mean little, but what mattered was that he stayed in Ryan’s place, even when the Veterans Center got back into action for the fight last Sunday.
Ryan returned to his usual place on Thursday, which was understandable and to be expected given the chemistry and results his line had in the last month of the season.
This brought Bennett back to the fourth row, where he will undoubtedly have ample opportunity to plunge, strike, and pull the flames into battle.
When he returns to the playoff form, coach Geoff Ward will endeavor to give the 24-year-old an extra ice age, even if he’s on the bottom line at the beginning of the night.
There is also the possibility that Bennett with Tobias Rieder and Zac Rinaldo will move to the middle on this line and that Mark Jankowski will be removed from the lineup.
It says here: Bennett will stand out again on the fourth line.
