Cowtownguy

Maybe it all works out in the end, but I have always thought that save percentage was an invalid statistic to the extent that it is largely attached to goaltenders. You could have poor play by the goalie, but stellar defense, and it reflects well on the 'tender. Alternatively, you can have the best goaltending, but your defense lets you down and the 'tender takes the blame. The same can be said if the forwards are really slow to help out in the defensive zone. It is very easy to blame the defense for poor breakouts, but that could be the result of slack jawed yokels up front. Save percentage is a team statistic, not a goaltender statistic per se. Attributing a save percentage, good or bad, to a goaltender is like blaming the middle domino for knocking over the one next to it even though the domino line is 20 feet long.

I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE ARE YELLING ABOUT!!! I agree with your assessment. Even great players have weaknesses. Johnny turns over the puck too often in the neutral/offensive zones, OV show boats too frequently, and Ramo overplays wrap arounds because he cannot read plays like Kipper (the Oracle). By overplay, I mean he puts on Mike Palmateer impersonations. Having stated the obvious, he has worked on this weakness and likely would not have made the save in question given Stamkos was let loose in a great position.

I actually did not think that Ramo had the best game against TB. Yes, the numbers suggest as much, but the shots he faced were pretty weak and from the margins. The Flames did a solid job of team defense and TB was really lethargic in this one until the last minute or so. The one he did let in was off of Stamkos who was not covered at all, but he still overplayed it. I think he is a good goalie (not excellent), but he frustrates the heck out of me when he overplays shots. I thought he had better games earlier in the season when we allowed affairs to be total shooting galleries. You cannot blame a goalie at all under those circumstances. In general, he has been playing well. Again, not amazing, not stupid crazy good, just pretty good.

I remember a time when most goalies came from all over Canada, then mostly from Quebec, and now increasingly from other countries. This seems to be a Canadian problem generally and a Flames problem specifically.

We did not draft him, but he did spend a few years with our farm club. I think we can take credit for a good part of his development.

I think the last one we successfully developed was Trevor Kidd. Jean Sebastien-Giguere was our draft pick and we dumped him far too soon I think.

It sounds as though King has been working on this for years, so there must be good reason for how they are approaching it. I was surprised that they brought this up with an NDP provincial government in power coupled with Nenshi being so opposed to it. Also surprising was the price tag which will likely increase with the Canadian dollar now competing with the peso. This is why it hit me when Nenshi was supportive of a group wanting to host the Winter Olympics. That would bring in federal and provincial dollars to build a new facility and make it less politically toxic at all levels. On average, sports organizations realize a 25% increase in revenue after a new building is constructed. As Peeps said above, I don't quite understand why cleaning up the area will be so expensive. Surely, anything dumped in the river cannot be dealt with now.

It is more a matter of when than if don't you think?

Or we could send the stuff to Vancouver...Edmonton...or Toronto! Lots of choices.

Ah, I see your position cross. I misinterpreted your thoughts on the matter. ETA: In the end, I hope that the new facility will truly benefit the average person in the city. Assuming public dollars will go into this venture, it would be really nice if many Calgarians use the facility. After all, it is a multi-function facility. The provincial government will have to eventually clean up the area. I sure would like to know how the previous owner(s) managed to get away without having to take responsibility for that mess.

I disagree with you. I suspect that the Flames will get a new arena and there will be public dollars sunk into it one way or the other. Ever wonder why Nenshi is in favour of the Winter Olympics coming to Calgary? They will not be able to use existing facilities if their bid is successful.

If we do not get a great goalie after drafting Ortio, Gillies, and McDonald, I think we have some serious problems with developing players. Each one of these guys showed greatness early in their careers. We have to stop relying on other teams to do this work for us because they charge a premium for doing do. I don't blame them either. I realize identifying talent is very hard, but we have to do better at this position.

Brodie is a great skater and his conditioning is amazing. He needs to be careful not to shoot the puck off of defenders in the offensive zone. He has cut that down, but it still happens from time to time. He skates so well that I suspect people tend to forget about it. Brodie also has issues with shaky confidence. Again, it appears as though he has worked on that. By comparison, Gio is the full meal deal IMO. What is truly remarkable is that he has that unique ability to get the team fired up and turn around the momentum of a game. I think that injury from last year is still lingering. He is getting better and better as the year progresses.

It is insane to pay that much for two goalies who are playing so inconsistently. The question is who do you go after, what do you give up, and when? I really wonder if management is thinking of taking a risk on Bernier with Ramo as the starter. With the cap hit and his recent play, that is seriously risky of course. Perhaps there are few more attractive alternatives. I wish we could pull Bishop from Tampa. I think Hiller needs to retire soon. I just hope that the Flames give him one more chance when Ramo has a string of bad games. I really doubt that the Flames sign him next year.

I vaguely remember that he moved in a couple of different positions with Arizona and then I think left the NHL. Did he ever sign with another team? I have not heard about him in some time.

I don't know what Burke does down there, but he seems to be an absolutely amazing goalie coach. He must be using a combination of drugs and electro-convulsive shock therapy or something. It seems Arizona is goalie rehab and Toronto is goalie graveyard. I guess that Treliving did not want to take up another roster spot and obtain Khudobin. I am not surprised and that is why I asked people above why he might not make the deal. Either that, or he thinks Khudobin is not much of an upgrade and/or it will adversely impact the rest of the team.

If we have the cap space and need better goaltending (assuming that it is not a defence issue), why might Treliving not make the deal for Khudobin?

Bryzgalov is rather funny. Remember when in a high voice he said: "Is only game. Why you heff to be so mad?"

I think that they have two Stanley Cups despite Crawford rather than because of him. Now, he does come up big at important times. I am not sure I would want him on the Flames.

Teams that consistently draft well and develop their own talent are much more successful over the long term than those that try and trade themselves out of the craters they create. Chicago and Detroit seem to be much better at drafting and developing than are the Flames. We drafted and developed Vernon and Kidd, but few other goaltenders became successful. I don't know what we need to do to improve this situation apart from obtaining the right coaches. You never know who is the right coach for years. Do we have this talent now? I just don't know and I doubt anyone else really knows for sure either. We might be able to trade our way out of this situation. Right now, few teams are trading much at all and I highly doubt that there is another hidden gem like Kiprusoff out there. By that, I mean we are not going to give away nothing and obtain that kind of greatness again. To obtain a Kiprusoff, we need to give away Johnny G, Monahan, or Bennett. I am not in favour of moving any of these assets. I would be willing to trade a first pick for a Schneider if there was a Schneider out there and a team with two solid goaltenders willing to make such a trade. We can obtain a Bernier and hope for the best, or get some other good (but not excellent) goalie. We will pay for that person and with the major defensive mistakes that we are still making, I am not sure the "improved" tender will make up for the asset loss. As well, sometimes a great goaltender just masks errors that the rest of the team makes. I believe Crawford is not a #1 goalie and that the 'hawks keep him to place emphasis on other parts of their game. I am in favour of letting Ortio develop rather than rushing the whole process and ruining this talent as we have done in the past. Nobody can declare what he is until we have a full body of work to assess. That body of work cannot be done until the time is right which is just not now. Who cares about the playoffs when we are not going to contend for anything if we make it to that point anyways? Losing assets during a rebuild for a playoff birth everyone knows will go nowhere is not logical. A rebuild is unattractive precisely because it means you have to be patient while acquiring players through the draft for years. Ortio and Gillies are the future and we need to let this play out. Hiller got us to the playoffs last year and he is clearly struggling this year. You don't just dump a guy like that when he had a poor start, an injury, and then the flu. What does that say to the team? What kind of chemistry and character can possibly be developed when a team's motto is "nothing given, everything earned" and the reality is more like "what have you done for me lately"? They are two mutually exclusive philosophies.

That is a great video. Ramo has great reflexes. He tends to overplay wrap arounds and consistently lets in soft ones. Hiller was great and has just fallen off with time. Hopefully, we develop Gillies and MacDonald properly. I think we suck at developing goaltenders.

Remember, back in the day (last year), when it seemed like we often scored on the PK?

I think the Flames should not have signed Ramo to another contract. They should have traded him earlier if possible or let him go. He is an acceptable goalie, but not great. That matters not now I suppose. They should have gone with Hiller and Ortio come hell or high water. My sense is that they think it is too early to put Ortio in net especially when the Flames are playing poorly. So, send him down and see if he clears waivers. It might be inevitable that we lose him either way. We need someone to be a regular goaltender while the young-uns develop assuming that we expect the rebuild to end in a couple of years. Have we ever actually developed a solid goalie? I believe we developed Kidd.

We can blame goaltending all we want to and it will not fix our team. Yes, I think Ramo tends to overplay shots, falls dangerously out of position, and lets in goals at the worst possible times. Yes, Hiller has had a terrible start and I suspect is unlikely to be the goalie he used to be when he was at his peak. This is still not the problem in my opinion. They are good goalies. The problem starts, but is not limited to, our defensive zone play. We used to transition the puck unbelievably fast and that is not happening now. When was the last time you watched a Flames game and were impressed by our lightning speed in both directions? We got into some very poor habits late in the playoffs where we found ways to keep the puck out of the net simply by blocking shots and keeping the puck to the margins. That play is unsustainable, and we keep doing that instead of transitioning. This is true for every defenseman we have with the exception of Brodie. If you watch the two goals last night (against the Caps), Gio was way out of position. He was closer to the point man than his winger. A forward can replace a defenseman in the offensive zone, but it should happen rarely in the defensive zone. On the second goal, Brodie was clearly confused as to which player to take. Need I mention that poor penalty Gio took in the third two games ago that resulted in the beginning of the end? Hamilton is struggling to fit into a team that is itself unclear of how to play. I really don't blame him for looking out of sorts. If we are going to play this style of offensive hockey, it means being the first to recover the puck and making excellent passes to forwards who put themselves in positions to take passes. The defense require at least one passing option and they are frequently getting none when they do actually get to the puck first. All Flames fans get that nervous feeling when our team loses possession of the puck in the offensive zone because we know deep down that every drive towards our zone could mean the puck staying there for several minutes; an eternity in ice hockey terms. All of this poor play is clearly encapsulated in our low puck possession scores. So, I don't care which goalie you put in net. If they are taking dozens of shots from opposition players deep in the slot who are able to stand there without so much as experiencing a frown, then they are going to get scored on a lot. The only way to prevent that is to transition out or bang away, and this team, apart from Smid, is not built for banging at all. Blaming the goaltender is the mark of a loser team in deep Freudian denial. Edmonton did it (and still do) when they played sucky defense and Toronto has done so for, oh I don't know, 6 decades or something. If we were to actually bring in Lundqvist, Quick, or Price, all it will do is mask how poorly we play in other areas of the ice and we already did that over the last years with Kipper. Heck, if we got a mason to build us a cement wall in front of the net with just a 2" x 4" opening, we would still lose games 1-0 or 2-1. We can blame the goalies, the coach, the GM or anyone else. Simply put, a rebuild does not get completed in a year or two. It means obtaining the right talent, educating them assuming they want to be educated, generating the right chemistry, and luck. Hartley can no more make this team a winner in a year or two than Einstein could turn an 8 year old into a world class leading physicist even with the talent, desire, and training. When people start calling for Hartley's head, and they will, just remember how even Ralph Krueger was unable to make the tools up north institute the proper playing structure or how the Sedin's responded to being yelled at, called out, or ridiculed. Being patient means a willingness to allow for a 5 year rebuild. Anything less is the very definition of Leaf culture. Sorry for the long post.

I would rather have a top tier goalie than not, but sometimes great tending can be problematic. I believe that Kipper played so well for us at times that it masked a lot of other problems we were having. Kipper worked his butt off at times when many of the other players were "romanticizing" the pooch.