conundrumed

I think @flames-fan-in-jets-land could speak to it best, but damn those Jets "stars" are Patrick Kane level zero defence. If they miss, I have no idea why you'd keep Sceifele and even potentially Connor. But then again, I'm one who despises players too "good" to play defence.

A lot of drama being invented for an everyday ordinary signing.

Mazur inked his ELC as an AHL tryout, as expected. Looking into next year, at some point, we're likely to see 4 <23yo Dmen that had great success in the SH(E)L in Seider, Edvinsson, Johansson and Wallinder. At worst the following year. This is why you move Hronek for a good haul before he needs to be re-signed. All 4 should be better options within their ELC years. Maatta will be the gatekeeper and he's been great, Chiarot is likely a bad signing but I can understand giving it a shot. The Vrana incident...as we're seeing, Vrana is one of the top pure scorers in the league. He is now quite vocal about his disdain about his treatment in Detroit. He was told 2 offseasons ago to get shoulder surgery. He opted to, "work through it". 10 minutes into the start of camp, it was evident that he needed shoulder surgery. He was out 5 months. Finished the season showing he's a great sniper. Came into this season a sniper, 3 games in, into Player Assistance. His choice or not, he has a substance issue. It was made popular in the '70's. Offseasons are his nemesis. If he doesn't have it under control this offseason, he'll be the best pure sniper not in the NHL. His bickering is only proving one thing. That he STILL doesn't hold himself accountable. The trade return for Vrana proves that everything was laid on the table for Army. "Here's a 7th, I'll give it a shot at turning him around", This is indeed Vrana's lifeline. Army will have zero tolerance, so this will be his 3rd strike with the league's top GMs and nobody else is going to touch him if he doesn't turn his personal life around. Maybe he can, but bickering about his ex-team's mgmt is also how he started in Detroit.

Damn, slept through the whole thing and being blacked-out means no replay. Looks like a great goalie battle and Walker Duehr is officially found money. We are in it again.lol I'm almost excited but still trying to overcome the, "fool me 14 times" that this season has become. I really had zero fear coming into this year that I could watch the Wings develop and the Flames be my playoff team. Now I have to be hopeful again because LA has been dominant and added a very good goalie. I'm sure they'll take it out on Edmonton Thursday night. Unfortunately they'll be playing the other goalie as they ease Korpisalo in as their playoff goalie. I still remember him almost single-handedly beating out the Leaks in the covid playdown while I was surrounded by Leaks fans. Still can't thank him enough.lol

Exactly. U of Denver and Wings draft pick Carter Mazur signed yesterday as an AHL try-out so he'll report to Grand Rapids. It's the same 3yr ELC, just a different component to the signing. For an example of what @cross16 is saying. Off topic, that makes Mazur, Wallinder and Kasper filing into GR for an early look for next year's camp and a stealthy move. Flint's Amadeus Lombardi would be a 4th but Flint starts playoffs Friday and may get past the 1st rd, though not the 2nd rd. Uh-oh,,,I'll save it for my Wings thread.lol

I'll agree on the good skater and add he goes hard to the net, has a good shot and even better releases. His D play is above average for a scorer. He's played some C, but he's a winger. I've seen some conversations about him playing C, but that was circumstantial. He's not a C.

Getting exciting with Kasper and Wallinder reporting to GR. Potentially Lombardi if Flint exits quickly. Still waiting on Mazur signing his ELC. All solid prospects.

Hindsight. I don't think anyone cared Valimaki got waived, he was terrible in the A last year to boot. Can't re-write history. Great he found a place. He sucked here and deserved to be waived and get him off of the books. Makes no difference what he does after.

He hasn't set foot on the ice yet, so too early to tell. Can't have takeaways from Harvard, they weren't a great team. Even JG had really good linemates. MC, not so much. His goals were generally just him creating the chances.

Kevin Lowe has entered the chat.

yup. Almost unuseably slow on my laptop as well, like I'm on dial-up.

Wow is it the new skin making this site slllloooowwww aaafffffk?

I agree, I think our scouting has been really good. Unfortunately we've shed a lot of picks in the last few years so that route was somewhat negated.

The year before the NYR jumped from 6th to 2nd oa. Some teams have all the luck I guess. Choke on Lafreniere and Kakko golden childs.

They're still playing.😉 G tryouts are always a good idea, someone will have to be the AHL starter next year.

Am I correct in thinking that we have to sign Beck to his ELC now or he's out?

It's a win-win for everyone. Sadly, now I'm just waiting for everyone to blame Sutter for not playing him every time we lose from here on out.lol

Yes he was. He finished his freshman year 1pt behind team leader, junior Chris Kreider.

Wranglers sign G Matt Radomsky (Hobey Baker nominee - U of Alaska-Fairbanks) to a tryout. https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/283364/matt-radomsky

Really? It's not because 31 other teams have plans, and half of them might be better/luckier than yours? The possibility of 5 years in the toilet to be exactly where you are right now is real. For each success, there are multiple failures that get ignored. A full rebuild is a crapshoot if you come out better than where you're at. Add in, no matter how bad your team looks, every player is still trying to win/keep a contract. They aren't going out to lose for you. What if Wolf comes in and he's Vasilevsky? Now your constantly picking 10th. Do you let that go to waste? Does that help your rebuild plans?

Mangiapane's a bad comparison. His center of gravity and shot release are far better. He won't be the falldown king.

Nonsense? I don't recall the Flames finishing at or near dead last and always losing the stupid lottery. 17-18: 4th last, draft 6th 18-19: 4th last, draft 6th 19-20: last. 39pts, it's not even close, draft 4th. The 79pt NYR drafted 1st. LA 64pts 2nd, SJ(OTT) 63pts 3rd. Tell me again why the lottery is fair because teams will tank? Ridiculous. 20-21covid: 5th last, draft 6th 21-22: 8th last: draft 8th-call it a win. So if you want to blow it up, don't expect a first oa if you're not a babied franchise, which we aren't, nor is Detroit. The massive market franchises and babysat markets get the wins. The lottery is nothing more than a lousy carnival game, run by sketchy carnies. Like they aren't smart enough to come up with a better way to do it. Like teams actually try to be 17 win-season bad. But I guess it's something to bet on, which is the most important thing to the league now that the ARI owners got their gambling license. Franchises like Detroit, Calgary, Anaheim, Columbus, Chicago, Winnipeg, Ottawa go full on blow up, you're on your own. You better draft extremely well. Franchises struggling to stay afloat and massive markets for the win. MTL the worst team? Here's your 1st oa. Toronto, here's your first. NYI, Pitts struggle to stay afloat? Here's your 1st. Just give it to ARI now.

Teammate Sean Farrell (2020 4th rd) has signed his ELC with Montreal.

Stats and data don't really mean much in regard to the little universes of each individual game. We funnel a lot of pucks at the net without screens or much traffic. This means when we blame our goalies for letting in 30' flutters, they likely didn't see it due to screens. We don't score many of those because we just aren't good at screening their goalie. The old adage, "if they see it they'll stop it" is true. We also play risk at the offensive blue line too often as well. So we give up a lot of odd man rushes moving north when the other team gets a turnover. They push it south on us in a hurry. That's pretty much the book on us. That's what the Oilers did in the playoffs, as much as all blame Markstrom. And for a defence-first team, the majority of our dmen aren't great defensively. So every team will let you shoot anything the goalie can see because it's harmless. We just don't plant guys to be screeners, I have no idea why. But watch us in the o-zone, and count how many times you see a Flame standing at the top of the crease in front of the goalie. We always funnel back to the D, but no one tries to screen the goalie, or they suck at it.

Yes he can go to the A. It's already happening with other collegiate level players and soon with jrs as their season's close out.