cross16

I agree and honestly it's the biggest and best change that Treliving and the Flames have made in their scouring. Instead of rolling the dice on guys who are "big" they are rolling the dice on skill and guys who can make plays and worry about the other faults later. Much, much better approach than trying to chase big guys who are ranked low for a reason.

Technically speaking though Kerins is already in his D+2 year. he just had his D+1 year wiped out due to COVID. He will have 3 full years of OHL experience so i would be looking to put him in the A if I were the Flames.

I'd like to see more of him, but this type of production becomes a pro far more often than it doesn't. Really, really good find by the Flames.

I don't see any issue with Markstrom usage nor do I think rest is an issue. He's only played 8 games in the month of January and 6 in the last two weeks. It's not a lot. I'd be more concerned about him being in rhythm than I would be about him not being rested or mentally fatigued. I think Sutter made the right call playing him back to back personally.

Maybe, but it just leads me to believe there is more going on behind the scenes that we don't know about.

I get the NHL cleared him but i'm really surprised that neither the PA nor the League challenged this process at all. San Jose gets a get out of cap jail free card I guess. That or there is more to the story and the PA didn't have any grounds to actually challenge the termination.

I agree Monahan has played better lately. He seems to be getting his feet back and I think his 2 way game has been better. Done a fairly good job in the d zone as well. Only problem for me is he still isn't really impacting the game offensively enough to justify the cap hit but maybe that comes around. I also think Dube is pulling him up a bit, as well as the fact he's leading the team in o zone starts. Looking better but for me he still looks miscast.

100%. Skill set to be a top 6 center but often the motivation/energy level is that of a AHL/NHL tweener. Always been an interesting case to watch. But if he ever can turn it on consistently the Flames probably have something.

They could have offered him an ATO this offseason and invited him to camp, but the only way to make him part of the organization would have been to offer him an entry level contract. Undrafted Junior players still eligible for the draft have to go back to juniors unless the team is willing to gain their rights by giving them a full ELC. If he goes unselected in this year's draft he'll be a Unrestricted free agent.

I get it's never fun to lose to the Oilers but I personally didn't feel very negative about the game. I thought they Flames played very well, really dominated the Oilers for much of the game and it came down to penalties and Koskinen. They took too many penalties and gave a really good PP time to work and I thought Koskinen was excellent and really won them the game. I don't agree they were shooting in his body, he made 3-5 very good saves. Results weren't there but the process was. You win like that way more often than you lose.

They hired Ken Holland for starters. I won't admit that I saw this coming, and I will say I think this is a big slump that they likely will pull out of to some degree. I had the Oilers as the 2nd best team in the division, just above the Flames, and probably a mid 90s point team (I don't think the Pacific is very good). So I am surprised, but not shocked The Oilers had one of the worst off seasons I can remember because they did nothing to address what are obvious flaws. The Oilers cannot defend very well, have bad goaltending, and when McDavid/Draisatl are not on the ice they are really bad 5 on 5. The only reason the Oilers have had success in the past 2 years are when their PP clicks at an unsustainable rate and their goalies get hot. it's not a receipe to win over the course of a season. Holland had a chance to rectify that and completely blew it. For the first time in many seasons the Oilers had cap space and had a chance to probably make some meaningful changes to his team. Instead he blows 16 millions dollars on Keith, Barrie, Ceci and Mike Smith. That is a significant amount of money to put into 4 players who do nothing to fix the problems your team has. On top of that the only trade he made was to bring in Foeggle for Bear. So not only did he bring in the wrong players via FA he then doubled down by sending out the type of player he needs right now. Now I will grant him this, Foeggle is a good player who just seems to be struggling but it still comes back to the fact that Holland is building this team the wrong way.

I don't think this is a Flame issue, it's a league issue. Who has it figured out? I don't know about the last statement. I mean out of your list Samsonov sure hasn't been very good so far, neither has Knight. It's early for sure but I don't agree that recent consensus has been good, it's still a pretty big mixed bag.

I'm sure for some GMs that's a part of it but overall I honestly don't think that is the reason. I think it has more to do with the fact that I actually think organizations are just realizing that no one really understand goalie evaluation/projection and they are not prepared to use such a high valued pick on such a volatile asset. Those picks are too valuable and there are also no more means than every to acquire starting caliber goalies. Maybe not "special" or Vezina caliber goalies but I'm also in agreement you don't need that to win. I mean he took a smallish RW set to go to Harvard so if he wants to win now he probably should have gone in a different direction.

Agreed. All you have to do is run Jim Matheson in a twitter search to figure out what type of character you are dealing with. As I've said, the fact he's in the hall of fame is embarrassing for the league and the sport.

I thought the original question was fair and probably deserved a better response but to follow up it up the way Matheson did was highly unprofessional. As soon as he said "care to expand on that" it was over and Matheson should know better than that. He backed Draisaitl into a corner with that one and then went out of his way to try and make him look bad. The fact that Matheson is in the hall of fame is quite a joke IMO. While I shouldn't pretend to know all the media across the league it sure does seem like Edmonton has one of the worst collections in the league. Sure don't seem to treat the players very well up there.

Very well executed game by the Flames. Were ready to play and they made some nice adjustments from the previous matchup against Florida. I don't think they got Florida's best game but need to give the Flames some credit for that. They were patient with the puck, no critical turnovers and they played a really smart game that frustrated the Panthers I think. Panthers had a really tough time getting to their game because of what the Flames were doing. Credit to Markstrom for slamming the door in the first period where Panthers easily could have had a couple.

While I am a little surprised at the value Vegas has been able to extract from some deals the fact that they can find takers is not surprising. That's what happens when you have a surplus of good players, teams will take them off your hands. Problem in Calgary is they've been trying to unload bad players.

Semantics but like I'm saying I just don't think this was a rebuild so I don't think can pinpoint a certain acquisition or move as the "end of the rebuild" because to me there isn't one. But I agree on Hamilton that's a type of move you can make whether your rebuilding or not. Rebuilding is all about talent acquisition, we just associate it with high picks because that's normally where the best talent is, but if you can get a player the caliber of Hamilton you do that whether you are in a rebuild or not. Rebuild is not just about drafting high.

I would agree and wouldn't hold up Pittsburgh as a great example. They were bad far longer than any other organization would allow because they were trying to sell, not to mention they won a "goddamn lottery". There are 2 things I see different in other organizations vs the Flames thought and that's patience and intent. Chicago was patient. Yes they signed Khabiboulin coming out of the lockout but after that they hardly touched UFA the next 2 off seasons and didn't sign Campbell until after they had Kane. They made trades to target guys like Sharp, Versteeg, the shed themselves of older players/old guard Hawks and were intentionally about brining up a young group of players together. Then once they got there they got aggressive going after the likes of Hossa, Campbell etc. That is the different I find with what the Flames did and what other successful organization have done. The Flames were very focused on win now moves, unless the situation forced them into it, where other organizations were much more intentional around brining in players that fit the future more than the present. Of course you have to mention luck too. Hawks were originally slated to pick 3rd or 4th in 2007 but won the lottery to get Kane.

Agreed and no question this isn't all on Tippett. The roster is flawed, the goaltending is below par and it's hard to play a structured defensive game with that D core. I agree with all of that. What i'm saying is the roster constructions seems to indicate that the Oilers want to be a push the pace, quick strike offensive team. Tippett isn't that coach, so go and get someone who is.

See and I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't think the rebuild was actually abandoned it wasn't a rebuild in the first place. For me rebuild doesn't just mean "get high draft picks" but that's what it appears to mean to this ownership group. Sure they got some high draft picks, but I don't see their actions consistently with what I would constitute a rebuild. That's not a shot at Treliving either, it's a shot at everyone. Owners, Feaster, Burke and Treliving all contributed to that, but personally I don't think a rebuild ever happened here. It was a year by year reset, that just happened to include high picks because the club was just that bad.

No Tkachuk is the 2016 draft. It would have cost them Tkachuk. Stone has basically almost admitted since that the only team he was willing to negotiate a deal with was Vegas. If he was coming to Calgary it was to be a rental only. I get the optics of it but I just don't think this is a case of Treliving doesn't try hard enough. The deals fall apart for reasons outside of his control, or get to a point where they just don't make sense. I feel this is probably very typical of a lot of GMs we just hear about them more in the market so the frame our opinion of him.

To me though this defines the whole Treliving tenure and where you land on him. Did he actually drink the kool aid or did he just do what he was hired to do? I don't think the owners ever intended for this to be a multi year rebuild. When they traded Iginla, Feaster said his marching orders were to be in the playoffs the next year. Then they go out and hire Brian Burke. What's one of the Burke's moto's? He isn't patient. When they fired Feaster Burke was asked point blank "is this to speed up the rebuild?" Answer (direct quote): "yes" In the 2014 Offseason Trelving gave up picks for active roster players (Bolig) and signed veteran free agents. The only "future" oriented moves he did was try to weaponize his cap space to acquire extra first rounders. I just don't see that the playoff run in 2015 changed anything. This was always a team that thought they needed to be in the playoffs and to do it quickly. The only reason they dealt Glencross was they felt they could make the playoffs without him (which was correct both in hindsight and at the time). If they truly were in a rebuild why keep Denis Wideman (who apparently they were getting offers on) why keep Kari Ramo? heck why keep really anyone? Behavior and PR just isn't consistent with a team that was planning for a multi year rebuild.

MAF himself admitted that the thought there was a strong possibility he was going to be a Flame. Would be a bit surprising to admit that if the Flames never asked. My understanding is that Treliving tied at the 16 entry draft to talk about Fleury but the ask was the Flames first round. he ended up pivoting to Bishop (who apparently they agreed to a deal on) because the Lighting were willing to do it without the Flames first rounder. Treliving came back to Fleury in 17 but the difference then was the expansion draft. My understanding is at the trade deadline in 2017 Vegas and Pens put a deal in place for Vegas to aquire Fleury at the expansion draft.

Same old story for the Oilers. They were 9-1 with average to below avg 5 on 5 metrics that get hidden by unsustainable PP performance. This is literally the 3rd season in a row where the script is the exact same so it blows my mind that people within the Oilers, and some of the writers/fans, don't see this coming. it's very predictable. See what happens but I can't see how Tippett survives this. I'm not usually a blame the coach guy but the thing is with Tippett is in order to win with him you have to play tight defense. The fact he hasn't been able to install that in 2 plus years is an alarming sign that it's very unlikely this is going to work. Not many great candidates out there right now but he certainly is not it.