Calgary Flames News & Rumours: Dustin Wolf Struggling, Turning Around the Season & More
Hello everybody and welcome into our first Calvary Flames news and rumors video here at the Hockey Writers YouTube channel. I’m your host Matthew Zetour and as always, I guess because we start with the season preview, Justin is coming in to cover the Flames on these videos here. Uh Justin, how’s it going? Uh I’m doing better than the Flames are right now. Uh hasn’t been the greatest start. They are, as we’re recording, the worst team in the NHL. kind of unexpected a bit. Yeah. Oh, we were I mean at the beginning I know our season preview were kind of I think we’re in the middle of how they were going to be this season. Uh no changes in the offseason really. Uh maybe hoping of what they already have. Uh right now what they already have is not looking too good. Um so we’ll see if there’s some changes in the that might come. I don’t know if the panic button’s being pressed anywhere. Probably for some fans. Um especially for fans of Dustin Wolf. uh who is really struggling to find that form that he had last season like stealing games left and right. Uh he looked good in the he actually stole the first game uh against the Oilers. So they were like, “Okay, maybe he’ll do the same.” Since then, not too good. His stats are really bad. 4.30 goals against average, 854 save percentage. Uh some of the worst numbers in the NHL for a starting goalie. I are you concerned uh with Dustin Wolf right now or is it just because of the team is just not really helping him out? Well, I want to start by saying after that first game against the Oilers, he looked so good and I was so confident and I felt vindicated. I was the entire offseason I was saying how good Dustin Wolf is and it hasn’t been very good since then. Yeah. Now I’m not worried. Uh it this this thing kind of happens with goalies. I mean look at Sroken. His numbers aren’t fantastic. I think he’s a top five goalie. Look at even Vaselki who’s kind of rebounded a bit, but his numbers aren’t great either. This happens to guys. Now I will say that Wol may not bounce back entirely. Maybe this is a poor season for him, but either way, it’s a sophomore year. He’s being heavily depended on. The talent is still obviously there. Still a fantastic goalie. I’m not concerned, but I could see why people would be. Again, some of the worst numbers in the league, but again, I view him as a franchise goalie. I view him as maybe the best goalie in the league five, 10 years down the road for a long time competing for VZN. That’s how I view him. And that hasn’t changed. That probably won’t change, but it is a little concerning if you’re a fan of this team. Hopefully, he bounces back because he’s very fun to watch when he is playing to his potential. Yeah. And and the thing is too is like they I think overworked him so far this season. And they started in back-to-back nights to start and they’re not doesn’t seem like they’re having much confidence in their backups. Uh Devin Kulie of course is the backup right now. Provatto was kind of competing with that at the beginning of the season. Ended up going with Kulie. I is that something they should address? I mean, yeah, Wolfe is good, but he can’t be playing every night. I mean, that might be a problem why he’s looking like this right now, too. Yeah. Um there’s not really much they can do. Sure, they could make a trade, but I don’t think you really want to do that. If they continue losing games, doesn’t really make sense to make a trade, but we’ll see what happens. Maybe they just kind of ease the workload a bit. I felt I thought that he dealt with a heavier workload well last year. It wasn’t too heavy, but I thought he was again carrying them, carrying Calgary to wins, and I think he could do that long term in his career. Maybe not this season again. We’ll see. It’s very early in the year. Yeah. I mean, it would help if their goal their backups start making maybe confident they can put one of those guys in. Um, and I don’t know how how that all go. I mean, there’s going to be some goalies maybe put on waiverss. Uh, who knows down the line here. Uh, it’s kind of interesting they didn’t put in a claim for a guy like Mikey DPro uh in, you know, Boston. Put him on waivers. no one picked him up as it’s kind of interesting to me. Maybe the Flames might have gone with him, but I don’t know. I we’ll see if there that some of that opportunities come down the line for some goalies that they could maybe get. And again, Connor Ingram was another guy kind of was interested why they didn’t maybe go after him, but again, I don’t know. Ingram seemed probably would want more of a split rather than being a backup uh to Wolfe. So, we’ll see if they address that in the future. All right. Well, speaking of how the rest of the team is doing, not very well. One, five, and zero. I, like you said, the worst team in the NHL right now. How do they turn things around? I mean, apart from better, maybe better better goalending. I They’re not scoring goals either, which isn’t helping. Some of their top guys aren’t scoring. I What do you think? What needs to change? Uh, I hate to kind of go back to the same point, but at the end of the day, it is goalending. That’s how this team won games last year. That’s how this team is going to win games this year until they get a true game-breaking offensive talent. That’s just how it’s going to be. Um, I have confidence that Wol is going to start stealing games again. I mean, he did it the first game of the year. Thought he was great. But that’s how they’re going to win games. Maybe a few guys can step up here and there, but to me it’s goalending. If their goalending is good, they’re going to be better. If their goalending is bad, well, you see one five and0. Yeah. But at the same time, this is kind of a to me kind of a best case scenario for this team. They could use another really good talent, offensive talent. Maybe Gavin McKenna. That would be really helpful for this team. And yeah, another kind of middle of the standings finish doesn’t help them all that much. I thought they had a great draft last year. I thought they did great with what they had, but nothing compares to a top three, top five pick, and that’s not what the team is gunning for. But you could see how that could benefit them long term and how the long term is more important than just this season. And if this kind of start continues, if they keep snowballing, we might see some trades. Obviously, Rasmus Anderson has been in those talks for a while. Maybe Nazum Cadri, another guy, maybe not, but he was in those rumors. They could sell off is a legitimate possibility. And if they do, then they’re probably not going to turn it around. But I think it would be too early to do that. But that’s kind of in play. And again, never players never want to lose. But fans, if you can get a Gavin McKenna, it’s kind of a pretty good consolation prize. For sure. It is very early on in the season and they can turn things around pretty quick. Um but again 15 and0 not the best start and there’s not really a lot of positivity of you know things turning around at this point. Um and you’re looking at guys like like Sharon Govich of course getting called out by BXA and Hugging Night Canada there for his lack of effort. Um that’s not a good look. Um so I mean it is something that I think they need to some of their top guys need to start getting going. Um and the and the thing is like you say last season they got by by their goalending and their work ethic. Um and working hard and just coming to play every night and I think if they can get back to that they’ll get back to that type of team. But yeah, it is going to be something that needs to change especially the goalending. If Wolfe can start stealing games again that I think will just trickle down the rest of the team and they’ll start becoming that that type of uh basically a team that just doesn’t go away. very pesky. Um, which is how they got to almost getting into the playoffs last season. So, uh, we’ll see how that all goes as time goes on here. All right. Well, hopefully the Flames get some wins by the time we’re we’re talking about this next week or whenever the next video is here. But, thanks Justin for coming on and uh, touching on what the Flames have been doing so far this season. And um, make sure to check on everything at hawks.com for all the other uh, Flames articles from the Flames writing team. We got great content out there and of course our Substack newsletters. Take a look at those and all the other videos that we have on the YouTube channel. But until our next one, we will see you next time.
In this edition of the Calgary Flames News & Rumours rundown, Matthew Zator and Justin Giampietro discuss Dustin Wolf’s struggles to start the season, the Flames’ 1-5-0 start, and more.
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2 comments
lol how can you not be concerned
They did over work Wolf to start the season. They have/had zero confidence in backup Cooley.
The defense, outside of the Winnipeg game had been atrocious in front of Wolf with numerous egregious defensive pinches pregame which have lead to 2 o 1s and 3 o 1s.
They also can not score, at all;