darth_henning

I have a friend who lives at 6th Ave and 10th St (9th?) SW and her appartment building did definitely get flooded in 2013. So to say the arena isn't in a potential flood zone surprises me. That said, with mitigation projects hopefully we should never see that again. As to the cleanup, we're going to wind up paying for that with tax dollars sometime in the next 50 years. No developer will touch that land when there's hundreds of million on cleanup that they have to pay for. Not when they have any other option. The city and province will have to shrug and pay for it. To pretend otherwise like Nenshi is doing is bordering on irresponsible. There's a reason that there's nothing other than a bus barn and car lots there. The arena could be a great catalyst. Have the place cleaned up, and attract new tenents. There's already the new three tower condos going up kitty corner from Staples at the west side of the current Down Town. Transition through Mewata armories and Millenium park into the stadium and you have a great opportunity for a redevloped and revitalized area. Yes, the city does have rules that any building along the river cannot cast a shadow on the Bow. Personally I think that's a really nice idea. However, keep in mind that along Eau Clare there are 10-15 story condo towers within 50 feet of the river. No stadium will be nearly that tall. There's no real design constraints unless they want to stick a 30-story hotel tower on one end of it.

I think that a covered stadium is a necessity in this climate. I know some people will not be fans, but I like it. The translucent roofs on both are a brilliant idea that I hope they keep in whatever design they come up with. What stuns me is how the city is already balking at funding. The Flames aren't really asking for any funding beyond what the city has a) earmarked for the fieldhouse anyway, and a tax on FUTURE development that will be rapidly accelerated by the presence of the arena. Both of those are completely reasonable. The cleanup is the sticky point that they're asking for from all governments. But here's the thing - no one else is going to move onto and redevelop those lands without help aying for the cleanup either. They'll move into the East Village, or Mission, or Bowness, or Edmonton Trail, or Macleod, or 16th avenue and redevelop sites there that don't need remediation. The city/province are going to have to bite the bullet and clean up that land eventually anyway. Am I thrilled to be paying more taxes for that? No. But its going to happen sooner or later. Could also roll some ta increases into fugure development in the area for that as well.

The area around McMahon is a theoretical possibility, but the big problem is, you'd basically have to rip down McMahon before you can start building, and that leaves the Stamps without a stadium for at least a couple years. The baseball diamond and fields limit things, and they can't close the parking lot for the C-train/McMahon for that period of time either. The bigger issue though, that a lot here don't seem to realize, is that the entire Foothills Athletic Park is actually on land owned by the University of Calgary. They get a nice slice of revenue from the buildings there (and the Dinos play at McMahon). I don't see them handing over that giant chunk of property to the Flames ownership when they're focused on the University District (I REALLY hat that name) development on the west side of campus. That basically conclusively rules that out. So the west end of downtown looks the most likely. It needs redevelopment anyway and a major Stadium/Arena/Fieldhouse would be a great jumpstart to that. The whole area could be turned into a very large combination of Residential and entertainment - a few condo towers, the arena, a new glenbow, and a walkable dining/bar area along the river, along with the planned Pumphouse theater expansion. What might work for the city and the Flames would be an agreement that the Flames would obtain ownership of the land free of charge if they a) cover all costs of creosote cleanup, and fund construction of a covered pedway with handicap access from the Sunalta C-train station to the complex/west end. If they are willing to build the fieldhouse, I think it only makes sense that the city also make the 200million available to fund that portion of the project. That way the Flames get some benefit (free land) and the city doesn't have to outlay any money outside what they already have earmarked. One potential arena location I was thinking about that no one seems to mention is the dead-zone along MacLeod Trail north of Chinook. There's a lot of land along Macleod that is either empty or with building begging to be demolished. And there are two c-train stations that it could be put quite near a potential stadium. The city has announced plans to re-develop Maleod in the future to be pedestrian friendly with a lot of shopping and retail along it, this could be an excellent jumpstart not far from downtown. (personally I still think the west village is the best option)

I think some of our best tending was early in the season when Hartley was switching them out ever game or two rather than trying to ride who was "hot". I'd be happy to see him return to that rotation again.

Hiller and Ramo are both good goalies, but not great. Ramo will play four outstanding games, and then get completely lit up all of a sudden. This is almost like clockwork. Hiller is really up and down on an irregular basis, and lets in a few to many softies for my liking, not to mention his strange habit of being 20 feet from his net at the worst possible time. Yes they've both won us games, but I fee they've both lost us games too. They're good enough for now, and to make a decent playoff run. But I don't think they're a tandem that gets us to the cup final. I think Gillies and Ortio are.

No I get what you're saying. As we saw with his shootout goal (and the following night when it rang off the post) he seems to like to fake people out. He does the same thing when passing it seems. Everyone would expect the simple thing, but he goes for the fake or the higher risk to see if we can capitalize on that. That's not wrong though. Look how successful doing that well has made Tanguay in his career. I think if he can get his teammates to reading hi fakes and be a little better with the accuracy of those tight passes, he could actually be a very deadly addition to the back end to spring plays up the ice. Right now perhaps pushing a bit much because there isn't time to develop that. But next season when they have a whole year to get it right? I think that's got a lot of value. His point shot is a problem though. I grant that.

In their one game together so far, Schlemnk and Wotherspoon looked pretty good together. Hartly clearly likes Schlemko, and I have to agree with him. Someone who can fill an increasingly large roll on our team in the future. GREAT pickup. Next year we're probably looking at: Gio-Brodie Russel-Wides Schlemko - Engellend/Wotherspoon Morrison I don't know enough about but is probably competing for 7th with Spoon (Engellend is a lock due to contract and size). It looks like Smid may not come back from some reports I've heard. But hard to know until the team says something.

It was a good idea at the time. Necessary by most expectations of the season. But 1 to 2 years was what was needed. 3 in a rebuild is an issue if he's not going to be a core player which he wasn't going to be. Lets see Left Wings, or Centers who may get shifted to Left Wing: Gaudreau, Bouma, Wolf, Ferlund, Jooris, Shore, Granlund (if he doesn't play center) even Bollig (different roll)..... Right Wing is where we're a little shy with Hudler, Jones, Colborne being the only predictable ones, but LW (and Center) is well stocked. He tore it up early in the year, like we hoped/wanted. he just hasn't been the same since injury. How he performs early next year compared to others will determine his future both with us and in the league. Right now I'm with you on an early trade for whatever we get.

Everyone always talks about landing a top 4 D in trade this summer. My question is how? Who are we willing to give up who has that value? Gardeau? Monahan? Hudler? That's shooting ourself in the foot. Jooris? Colborne? Bouma? Wolf? Shore? Not a good idea to rid ourselves of young depth. Not to speak of that they don't have enough value. Raymond, Jones and Stajan might be options, but none have the value, and Raymond and Stajan's contract length makes it unlikely. Trading from our current D defeats the purpose. That leaves Backlund, our best possession defensive center. He may be replaceable in a couple years when others develop, but not yet. Realistically, we have to look at depth D on the free agent market for now, and not overpay or over-length their contracts like we did with Engellend. Get a guy for a season or 2 who can play the 3-5 position and can be traded or waived when the kids ar ready. Thank you for the info on the junior play. Having not watched I don't know. Was wondering why Wotherspoon was well liked. Kulak looked good to me in one game, but that's unfortunate to hear. Maybe in time? Engellend brings toughness, but without Brodie is a liability. We need him for now, but we need an upgrade.

It wasn't a good game by anyone really, but the D-pairings seemed to be mostly consistent to me (at least more than the forward lines) I see promise in Ramage and Kulak for sure. Camp will be interesting. Schlemko I hope stays (especially since Diaz is probably gone, and Smid may not play again) Wotherspoon is a questionmark for me. I haven't seen his junior play and was not impressed. Engellend is a known issue, but we need his size until Kanzig gets his skating abilities up to par.

I don't like Raymond after seeing his play this season. Especially when you realize that Jooris as a rookie and Bouma (younger with lower cap hit) have outplayed him. The thing is, did any of us expect Jooris or Bouma to do that this season? Nope. We did need Raymond or someone as a scoring threat this year. It was a good pickup. But the issue is that its a 3 year contract in a rebuild for relatively high dollar value (for what he brings). That's the questionable choice. It was a good idea to bring him in this year, but being stuck with him at least through net season is going to be an issue when he's already being outplayed. As to Bouma, I don't think he's the type of player who would do that with a contract year, with the culture around the team now, I don't think that would be anyone's intent. Still though, has he hit his career peak or is he going to keep improving? Not knowing the answer to that, my approach would be to offer him a 2 year "bridge" contract with the basic point of "prove it". If he peaks here, he's got a good contract to follow that one. If he keeps getting better he gets an even better payday. Either way that's good for both the player and the team.

I'm not about to give up on Ortio after 1 bad game. Ramo has had several this year and no one's screaming for his head. Ortio just came back from a couple months injured, earlier than planned, was thrown straight into an NHL game with minimal practice, behind a team where the top 4 scoring forwards on the team are all off, and our top 4 D-men are all not playing. You take away the 8 best guys in front of any goalie, and of course they're going to get lit up. Ramage, Kulak and Wotherspoon have maybe 10 NHL games between them, Engellend is a well known liability, and Potter is boarderline. That leaves Schlemko as a decent 5/6D in front of Ortio. To be throwing him under the bus after this game is insane. If anything, it points to our complete lack of D depth.

Well, I think that we can safely conclude that D depth is still an issue to look at in the offseason. Wotherspoon did not look ready for an NHL game IMHO. Engellend really showed his weakness again when not paired with Brodie. To be fair, Schlemko, Potter (surprisingly) and Ramage looked average but not bad. One game is too early to tell but Kulak actually looked the best of our D-core tonight. That is interesting.

When you gamble there are three possibilities: making the team better, having no real effect on the team, and making the team worse. A Great gamble is when there's a better chance of making the team better than the other two. A Good gamble is when there's a decent chance of making the team better, but still a chance of the other two. An OK gamble is when there's some chance of improvement, with some chance of decline. A Bad gamble is when you have no real chance of improving the team, so it has no effect or makes it worse. A Horrible gamble is what you describe, having a better than even chance of making the team worse or hamstringing us contract wise. (Cough Phaneuf trade cough) Setogouchi had no real possibility of improving the team any more than a half-dozen prospects to start the season. Therefore there wa NO chance to improve the team with his presence. However, because it was a small money, one year contract, there was no real way to make the team worse either. Therefore, it was a signing that did nothing for the team, making it a bad gamble, because it couldn't make the team better. Russell is a Great 'gamble' because its pretty much a 100% chance of making the team better. Raymond was a Good gamble because at the time there was a pretty decent chance of making the team better, a small chance of no effect, and pretty difficult to make it worse. He made us better at the beginning, and really has had no effect since injury. Bollig was an OK gamble because he might have made us a little better, or could have been a small liability. He wound up being neither.

Setoguchi may have been a low cost gamble but it was a BAD gamble to take. (see below). Ortio would have cost more money if he'd been given a 4 year contract, that's a given. But the increased cost for a 4 year contract then would actually have been less in total dollar value than 2 years then and 2 years now, where he's proven himself and can now ask for even more money to reflect his value. Essentially we're paying more for the same development curve. That's not good market management. No you don't give him some 8 year contract right out, but 2 years on a goalie who projects as well as he does is a short-sighted contract. I'm sorry you think that my ratings are terrible but we're assessing the RESULTS of these trades, not the potential. And my rankings reflect that. You want to evaluate potential? Then evaluate them when they happen. Not after the results are known. If you get into a car accident you're still going to have to pay for damaging the other person's vehicle. You don't get bonus marks because you thought you could miss him and didn't kill 5 pedestrians in the process. Where I've gone an A and an A+ give the same GPA grade, so to me there's no actual substantive difference other than looking pretty. By giving those an A I'm saying they're as good as you could possibly expect. I'm fine with taking GOOD risks. Raymond was a good risk that didn't turn out as well as it could have but had merit when done and thus got a better than average rating. Engellend was a big gamble that turned out kinda neutral given his recent play but we had little other choice given our lack of D depth, so again got a decent mark even though the pay is questionable. Setoguchi was a BAD risk - older player with consistently declining numbers that no other team really wanted to touch and showed no reason why he would suddenly improve here. That's a bad risk that didn't hurt us, but should not have been taken.

For all the trades, Brad got the best that he could in the situations with GlenX and Sven and the picks that he's gathered for next year in a reportedly deep draft can either help us stock multiple prospects or move up in the draft order. Good job on those. Similarly Shore has been a good pickup. Bollig is more iffy, but hasn't hurt. Solid B there For the draft its too early to tell, but Bennett and McDonald both look to be good NHL players in the forseeable future so a passing grade there. As for Signings/Waivers: Mason Raymond - 3yrs @ 3.15 --------------- good in theory, but he's already been surpassed by many prospects on the team and we're likely stuck with him for at least one more year. B- Jonas Hiller - 2yrs @ 4.5 ------------------------ very good pickup A Deryk Engelland - 3yrs @ 2.9 ---------------- has stepped up when needed, but overpaid, and early season liability B- Devon Setoguchi - 1yr @ 1.75 ---------------- everyone has one major mistake F Kris Russell - 2 years @ 2.6 ------------------- Great pickup and a major leader on and off the Ice A Joe Colburne - 2 yrs 1.275 --------------------- A good player who can slot in anywhere in the lineup really B+ Joni Ortio - 2 yrs @ 600K --------------------- Future starter, though a longer contract would be nice A- T.J Brodie - 5 yrs @ 4.65 ----------------------- Probable future Norris winner, part of the top D-pairing in the league with healthy Gio A Potter - 1 yr @ 700K ----------------------------- Other than providing a body in injury situations and playing in the AHL hasn't added anything, but only a one year contract C Diaz - 1yr @ 750K ------------------------------- Has done well on the third pairing, may have a place here next year B David Schlemko (waivers)---------------------- Has done well on the third pairing, may have a place here next year and was free! B+ Overall a B grade So overall a B grade for everything. Some poor signings, but for the most part quite good. Not outstanding, but good. He's put us ina g ood position for success both this year and in the future.

On the year we can say we definitely have a very good top 4 who have stepped up. Despite early-to-mid season performance, Engellend has improved and is a solid bottom pairing guy who will hopefully continue to be good. But we still need one more real top-4 player who can step in during injuries. Smid may or may not play again next year. I like Diaz, but I don't think he resigns. I'd be quite happy to give Schlemko a 1 year contract as he's played well since being claimed and may be a good bottom pairing guy. Potter I hope we don't resign. That gives us the ability to bring up Wotherspoon and see how he does and/or go after one more top-4 guy.

Interesting. Brodie is basically unchanged (15ish second difference), all the others have gone up a lot except Diaz. I'd like to see him and Schlemko given a little more ice time. They've performed pretty well, lets see what they can do with say 15 minutes a night. If its bad, cut it back again.

I guess fair point on tacit agreement, but just a little different than just about any other board I frequent. IDK, I just commented because its like the 4th time this week where I've had a post that basically said "the team/player did X really well, but there was this unfortunate little Y" and get several rebuttals about why Y didn't matter at all, even when in my post above I said it was bad LUCK that the goal went Schlemko and didn't blame him at all. Just an interesting culture difference on this board.

He didn't have a choice. Just hit it at the wrong angle. Like I said, bad luck, not a bad play. I do find it amusing on this board if you post something positive about the player or the team no one ever replies to it, but say one thing that could be construed slightly negatively and you get jumped all over.

Schlemko had bad luck with the second goal going off his stick, but otherwise I thought that he and Diaz played quite well overall. Also really nice to see the ice time more evenly balanced among the six tonight to give the big guns rest.

Seems an odd choice to be having over for a tryout. Regardless of the timing. I'm sure there's a reason, but I have no idea what it is. Ah well.

I'd be looking at a long-ish term contract for Gio with a front-loaded pay. Something like 6 years, at say 7.5, 7, 7, 6.5, 6, 4 or 5 Averages a fair 7 million for the first four but starts to drop off when younger players will need their second contract to stay , and drops in value towards the end to make a trade easier later if we need it. Russell I think we could look at a 4 years at 4mil per as a fair contract. Reassess the state of our D at that time.

There are a LOT of the team coming up on contracts this summer that need to be resigned, I'd focus on those first since Russell has another year on his contract. A little less urgent, but he DEFINITELY needs to be extended. This summer we're looking at new contracts for Backlund, Jooris, Bouma for sure, likely Wolf and Byron, possibly Ramo and Diaz (though I think Diaz likely won't be signed) All are manageable, but I expect the first three get bumps in pay. Then next year: Giordano, Russell, Monahan, Hudler, Colborne, Jones and maybe Hiller. < THIS is going to be an expensive year of new contracts, but other than Hiller and Jones, none of those guys should be going anywhere. Good think we've kept our cap low.

Thoser are basically impossible stats to argue with, especially for that cap hit. I do hope that if we can get a better depth though, the TOI can come down a little. That's the only issue I have. Schlemko has looked good in his first two games. That could definitely be a start. But I think it would be aceptable to pursue one more guy who could play anywhere on the second or third pairing. We also have to draft replacements for a few years from now.