Sucking at Center

So the Flames lost their fourth game in a row today, which is annoying, but still nothing to really panic about. Yet. They did a good job to build up their lead in the Northwest division so they could afford a slump like this. However, this slump has really exposed a weakness in the team's offense that has to be fixed if we want to get past first round this year. Flames fans have been crying for a first line center for Iggy practically since he entered the league, and it seems pretty obvious that this team still needs that this year, even with the offensive depth they seem to have. Prior to this losing streak Conroy did an incredible job hiding this weakness by playing on the first line at a level no one thought he could, but he cannot be expected to do this all year, and definitely not in the playoffs. Langkow could still be brought up, but he's really just a very good second line center at this point in his career. What's worse, that would leave either Conroy, Lombo, or Boyd on the second line. Let's face it, Conroy really should be on the third line in an ideal situation, and Boyd still isn't ready for that. Lombardi just plain sucks, unless we can finally agree he belongs on the fourth line, in which case he would be an incredible fourth line center. Somehow, I don't think Lombo fans are ready for that yet. So if we want our offense not to let us down for the third year in a row, Sutter has to bring us a good center by the trade deadline. It doesn't have to be a first line center; actually I don't think that would even be possible with the salary cap. But we NEED at least another second line center, which could allow us to safely move Langkow up to the first line. Come on Sutter, you've done a great job so far this year, but you still need to address this one very serious problem, which has plagued us for years.

-Hosh