travel_dude

On second glance, Korpisalo, Jary, Nedeljovik are younger. Freddie Andersson was decent but getting up there. Maybe none of them are available to us.

I don't know really. Not happy this year with either. Trading both would solve the quandry. Then we have to either trade for or sign another UFA. The UFA list looks ugly at first glance. I would be interested in Gibson, who I think is one of the best out there. Costly trade. Lots of Markstrom aged guys and older. How about Talbot. So, what is the solution? Keep the guy you can't trade and only give Wolf 15 starts because Sutter? Pay a team to take Markstrom and trade Vladar for an asset? Then sign a 1b type goalie at a cheaper cost?

Unfortunately, I have a small list of players I don't prefer to trade. I guess with Vladar, I am concerned we keep the wrong goalie by trading him. The only goalie we have that could ever approach Vas is Wolfie, IMHO. I don't really think that's a realistic belief, just a hope. I have no idea what happened at TDL. Almost like BT had no remaining power to swing deals. Like he was told, you can add but you can't trade a top 12 roster player. I am probably a little too quick to suggest trading players though. Backlund, Hanifin, Tanev, Coleman, Mangiapane (or Dube), Markstrom (or Vladar). I'm not high on trading Dube, just that we should try not to keep both him and Mange. Dube has not yet hit his stride, but Mangiapane is likely to stay close to his level this season. Did I miss anyone? Toffoli? Okay, like I said, if he gets you a good return so be it. My bigger issue is that we will still have Sutter regardless of who we trade for. Same mentality, same game. Low skill play. Give 110% or sit out. I don't know how you can have a team that only half of the player believe in the coach.

Tell us what goalie you think will be back and that the team was unlucky.

If we just stay the same, other teams will start to get better. We had 1/4 of the league pretending to compete in the 2nd half. Next year, they will be better and most teams will make summer improvements. The so-called easy wins will be gone. Any GM that has autonomy will make the determination of whether we can keep the current pending UFA's, what we can get in return and what we need to do external. That is gonna happen this summer and early fall. Chances are that one pending UFA will be left to do something with, and any GM worth his salt is going to make that call at TDL regardless of the playoff picture. He's not about to let a Backlund or Toffoli or Lindholm walk because they haven't signed. Been there, it hasn't worked. When you trade for a pending UFA, you are not expecting to re-sign them. Different scenario. Then again, all that could go out the window if we simply bring in a figure head.

It's the 2-1 or 3-0 or 3-1 losses that are tough to pin on him. Did he make that one save? Nope. Did the team score one more goal? Nope. Too many of both.

I'm not part of the mob. If he is signing long term and presents one of the few scoring forwards we have, is that wrong? Does a 30 year old RW get you a 23 year old scoring winger? Maybe. Maybe the return leaves us worse now and in the future. I am not opposed to trade that improve the team.

Toffoli was shooting at 12.7% this year, and his norms are 10-17%. One year was 5%. The chances on his shot volume being close to this year and the shooting % being above 10 are likely. If he was paired with a pass first player like Huberdeau, he might be close to 34 goals. In his first 6 games he had 3g and 2a. If that was due to playing with Huberdeau, expect something above 30g next season. Assuming Huberdeau is considered a top line LW. Lindholm was down almost 40 shots from last year, but maintained his shooting %. I'm not saying don't trade Toffoli, but if you do then the package has to be worth it. I can see us shopping anyone on the last year of their contract. If Toffoli, well you know my expectation. If Lindholm, it better be someone like Necas. Backlund just needs to net something reasonable and replaces 3C or other needed depth. Tanev is one of those coin flips. His age is putting his games played at risk due to possible injuries. Warrior, but miss him if he's out for any time. Zadorov is questionable. He's the lone bit of toughness on the back end. Hanifin has to be a decent return. Not as much issue with paying him this year as what he will want next year.

I think there is a healthy mix of debate on the problems we had. You can't just point to one cause and say that's the only reason. Ignoring the cap for a moment, what is to say that Wolf would have fared any better. One throwaway game doesn't prove it, and that was at the very end of the season. He would have the same issue in front of him. The cap and roster limits make it difficult to have 3 goalies. We had already lost a spot to keep Kylington active, should he have been able to return. We had injury issues with the D. We had to waive Valimaki because of the roster limit. So, to get Wolf up, we would need to waive Vladar or run less D and F. That wouldn't end well, especially considering Vladar was in a 13 game points streak. Unbeaten in regulation during that time.

The Flames need a culture change. The old style Burke-Sutter-Bean beliefs are so 2000's. At best 2012. I don't know that Conroy can bridge the gap to the new mantra. He does seem to be a players' GM, and would probably have players want to sign. But, I don't believe he would have more autonomy than BT. IMHO, Maloney needs to make the decision now to part ways with Sutter and Muller, just based on results. It doesn't matter what the players say, the results speak for themselves. You don't reward sub-par results by replacing the GM only because he walked away. Let the new GM, be free and clear to name his coaching staff. It could run deeper than just Sutter and Muller, but some things worked so let him make that call.

Welcome back! It's been difficult with the changes implemented to keep people and get them back. The main link on the Flames site doesn't work, so it's hard to get people to the site. Anyway, I think that it's not impossible to make trades. You need to be creative, but you also need to have the right piece to move. Nobody wants a Lewis. They want Tkachuks or Gaudreaus. Or Andersson. Regardless, sometimes you need to slightly lose a trade. Whether that gives you some cap to make other moves or gets you calls.

Ahhh, unstructured programming languages. Kinda makes pseudo code not relevant. I just didn't like the way cap friendly showed it.

To give the full picture, I would need to use a If-then-else nested set of statements. Then again, I hate word problems.

It's one thing to make a pick conditional to not give a lotto pick away. It's another when there is a page long set of conditions.

And that was the risk for us. A weak schedule and get just enough to be in the mushy middle. By rights, that schedule had us at about 55% chance of making it. Losses to CHI and SO loss to VAN or NAS put us out. Being close to making the playoffs is not being a playoff team. I also believe had we needed to win game 82, Markstrom starts and we lose it.

Okay, so here is how I understand the easy parts. We have 2023. We have the 2024 Flames pick, but MTL can receive it if it's 20-32 overall. It gets tricky after that. If MTL takes the 2024 20-32 pick, we keep the Flames 2025 pick and the FLA 2025 pick. It gets way too complicated after that, if MTL doesn't opt to take a 20-32 pick or we get 1st-19th. There are multiple conditions to it. MTL would be best advised to refuse the 2024 pick, since it gives them the best of the 2025 pick. Assuming one is not a lotto pick. The simple thing is we have 2023 and 2024 1st rounders. I doubt MTL opts for a late pick unless it helps them more.

Really what's missing right now is a top 6 C and a top pair D. You can get both of them by making smart trades and by drafting smart. Has to be a C ready for the NHL within a year. And the D has to be young enough to be really good now. and better in a year You graduate the top prospects this year and next year we have replaced the has beens. I am optimistic that Wolf can get there in a year (1b) and our current prospects in a year. So we use a guy like Mange (or Dube "cringe") and Backlund to get a 2D. We draft the best available C. Has to be NHL ready or very close. Trade Hanifin to replace Backlund at a younger age. Seems easy. Oh yeah, turf the coach and find one that know how to use players.

The smart GM's stay out of the way of competent scouts. ARI has drafted pretty low over the years with the exception of the Mike Smith era. I think sometimes we fell for a player that showed something to the guy following him. Somehow able to justify taking him in a 2nd round. Almost like each scout got their choice of one. The top round had to be consensus or close to it. The Euros were harder to dispute. I would expect this year to be closer to Craig Button rankings when we go to make choices. There is a power vacuum now that BT is gone and if it isn't resolved before the draft, the head scouts will dominate.

I can get why Toffioli props him up as a coach. Guy was a support player on most of his teams and now get elevated to top line, top minutes and top PP time. And I never remember Sutter saying a bad word about hi ever. He's there to score every 3 or 4 games according to Sutter math. Had a career year and the only other ones that managed that were Zadorov (goals) and Backlund (points). Pretty hard to sit there and hear that the team lost a tight game because the top players didn't score a goal, while not mentioning that the goalie let in more than 3. In the next breath, he blames a young goalie for not doing his job. Made some good saves but wants one or two back. It's like the team was force fed a goalie and constantly had to outscore his mistakes and were fed up. The starter is supposed to be better. Whereas, the young goalie let in a few extra but only when the team was scoring in bunches. At least it started that way. Once he sat for too long, the quality starts were gone. I should say the wins were gone. Nothing makes sense. The only thing common is we missed the playoffs twice under Sutter. We won one round under him and he was outcoached by a rookie coach. If keeping him means we lose players that represent our best chance at success, then turf the old bas*ard.

2 months or less to have a GM level decision making process in place. The GM is really the guy that approves the draft list and makes trades with positions or players. Coming up to an off-season that will make or break this franchise. Last think I want to see is Mr. Bean on the phone on the draft floor....

To me, it's not the arena as much as the development of the area. EDM is the worst possible example of development. On a busy street with nothing but a Casino in the building (for Kane) and built next to a soup kitchen. Not exactly Ghila Arena or Smashville level development. Little Caesar's is probably closer to Nashville's than EDM. It needs to be functional first. Entry and exit. Services. An enjoyable experience. Escalator? No perilous trip to Press Level seats? Proximity to other services.

I would tend to agree. More about dealing with Bean. The toxic Sutter situation was just an added thing that made it tough to want to work there.

I would put it on D and G. The D has Ekholm and Kulak as being the only real D. The rest are pass to McD. Shoot on the rush or PP.

Well, the belief is that if you make a right choice, then you don't end up firing them because they were the wrong one. Sutter is about the most we have ever spent on a coach. Most are cheap. You get what you pay for. Not sure why we would spend $4M on Sutter. Has been that had a good run when he was younger.

Isn't it more like you fire a coach after a win and he manages to still not get to the playoffs. Followed by a year of uptick. Followed by a year of failure? In every coach hired and fired there is a common theme. Coach pushes the team to win. They win and then fail in the playoffs for a variety of reasons. Coach decides that he needs to push more the start of the next season. Or changes from things that worked.