Iceberg? What Iceberg?

Tomorrow night, the Dallas Stars will do battle with the Calgary Flames, the team immediately ahead of them in the Western Conference playoff race, with both teams currently on the wrong side of the playoff bubble. The Stars have reached their current standing by playing lights out at home but virtually inept lately on the road, including a recent 4-0 beat down at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche, the team that has bookended the Stars’ current 1-8-0 road stretch.

The Flames, on the other hand, have seen the rug pulled out from under them at in front of their home crowd; they just went through an inexplicable 10 game stretch in which they have gone 1-8-1, including a string of six straight home losses that saw the team score a paltry six goals total.

Understandably, the fans of both teams have grown increasingly frustrated over the past few weeks as their teams have continued to slide down the standings. However, where the Stars would almost be expected to do so based on their bottom-five position in the league in terms of team payroll, the Flames and their fans went in to this season with their eyes on the Stanley Cup. They went out and added prized free agent defenseman Jay Bouwmeester, who came with a $33.4 million price tag, to their already high-priced blue line – their defensemen eat up $23.4 million this season.

With both teams going through embarrassing segments of their season, I thought it might be fun to play a little Which Coach Said This Publicly About Their Team, aka What Would Nathan Thurm Say?* There’s not much good to say about Calgary or Dallas these days, so let’s have a look at how Stars’ head coach Marc Crawford and Lames’, er Flames’ head coach Brent Sutter are handling their underachieving squads, while having a little fun at their expense.

Guess which coach uttered these overly optimistic proclamations:

1. “I won’t stand here and be negative.”

2. "It's not that complicated, but it is doing the right things over and over again. I do believe it will work, and I do believe we will make it work”

3. “Yet, when you’re in that, you almost have to go the other way, going, ‘I’ve got to get my work ethic back to where it needs to be — or higher,’ and things will start coming again.”

4. “As much as it is a loss, in a funny way it could a real catalyst for our team. We're hoping that it can be a catalyst for our team.”

5. “Knowing we haven't played our best, it also gives us some solace knowing that if we get our act back together, we'll get right back into the thick of things."

6. “All through summer, when you’re communicating with guys, with the coaches, and when you’re sitting down with management, you visualize what your team needs to be and how you have to play. And this is the way I visualized this team.”

7. “What do you mean we’ve lost all these games in a row? No we haven’t! You’ve lost a bunch of games. It’s so funny to me that you would think I don’t know how we’re doing. Why wouldn’t I know how we’re playing on the road? We’re doing fine.”

What happened to the era of coaches ripping their teams publicly for their pathetic performances? They’re grown men and make a ton of money - they can handle it. Where’s Mike Keenan when you need him?

Obviously, both coaches are being much more pointed behind closed doors - at least I hope they are – but the constant soft-pedaling and coddling of the players that Crawford and Sutter continue to offer up to the public is getting insulting. Unless the Flames and Stars somehow get their acts together in the next thirty games, we won’t be hearing any of this claptrap past mid-April.

Answers: 1. Sutter; 2. Crawford; 3. Sutter; 4. Crawford; 5. Crawford; 6. Sutter; 7. Coach Thurm.