travel_dude

Your's is now the only one.... I think people will not be posting a lot unless we blow the doors off them or jump the shark. I think we are headed for jumping ths shark. Thanks, Lucic.

Posted one at the same time. I will delete mine. Here are the Flames lines: Dube-Lindholm-Toffoli Huberdeau-Backlund-Mangiapane Ritchie-Kadri-Coleman Lucic-Lewis-Duehr Weegar-Andersson Hanifin-Tanev Zadorov-Stecher Markstrom (Starter) Vladar

I really wish we had traded for Nemestnikov over Ritchie. Sure it cost draft capital, but we may have been looking at playoffs over fighting WPG (and NAS) for last spot. Perhaps a cheaper replacement for Backlundnext year. Having the player going to UFA gives you a slightly better shot at re-signing him. 9 points in 15 games. Not bad replacement player.

I think what you find is that there are gems out there, but so few and far between that you miss them. And the ones like that may not even hit until a special set of circumstances happen. Jeannot is hardly a success story. Comes from nowhere and is basically back there. Just one example. On the other hand, you probably see Phillips in the NHL next year, lighting it up.

Nobody is excusing him. Gaudreau made tons of those, Mangiapane and Dube made a bunch earlier in the season, Huberdeau has done that a lot. Each of those games this season are as important in the overall standings. Your comments seem well over the top. He has 4 game winning goals, Toffoli 4 and Lindholm 2. Only 3 players in the lineup have 4 game winning goals, so the POS does something right, does he not? Love him or hate him, we are well past the most important game of the year. We lost those weeks ago, in fact most of March. As one players said to Mike Smith one time, "Stop the F'ing puck".

It's 50/50 at the best of times against them. Our players know what we have behind them (Goalie). They are going to give it what we expect, but it may not be enough. Too much relies on perfection, since our goalies can't stop jack. Helly may not be perfect, but most times you see his best. I don't even know what Markstrom's best looks like now. Minny game? Well they actually scored on him and it didn't count.

Perhaps Conumdrumed can provide his scouting analysis of the player, seeing more of the OHL than a lot here. On the Soo, he was 4th in scoring, and one of two in the top 4 that is unsigned. A RHS C/RW. The other is a 5'10" RHS RW. He's a player that doubled his production from last year. Trajectory is good so far. It comes down to this, the top players get drafted and contracts, not just ATO's. Are we taking a chance, considering we (should) lose a few players from the Wranglers next year?

No lineups until pre-game skate. Markstrom is confirmed to start. No big surprise.

Sounds about right. The injury that Hubey had played into it, but all it was was subbing in Ruzie. That was a good line too. But when you take a top 6 player and toss him to the 4th line or scratch, it's not good.

I suspect this was a much better year for scouting. The only issue is whether they just go with the crowd or develop a list from 1-216. When players are passed over, it seems to be all but a couple of teams. A game of chicken at times. Who blinks first.

I agree. He had Nichushkin did he not? He was a great finisher last year. I'm not even sure what lines we had in games 1-6, but they seemed better. Huberdeau was with Lindholm if I recall. Sutter didn't like something about it. And it's been a mess for most of the season since.

Our luck, he gets there and scores 3 goals and we miss the draft lotto by one spot. I don't think it's right that we don't give any runway to young players since they had a bad camp. Or don't fit the view of a coach. Scoring in the NHL is tough. Players are not small. Big difference....bla bla bla.

We always go BPA and sometimes we are able to trade down and still get our guy. I do think that at times you need to focus on position. I think we did that with Coronato. If all things are equal, a RHS C or RD is probably what I would look at.

First off, fatigue. Sutter talked about it, but he's talking about mental fatigue. Or at least that what he has said in the past about it. Making mistakes when your mind isn't clear. Not just a lazy flip pass, but trying things that have little chance of working. Not thinking things through or using what you normally do to score. I'm not giving Kadri any benefit of doubt for the sloppy play. 18 other guys out there that didn't make any difference in the game. I get the dislike for him, but it's hard to come from a championship team with a great coach to this team that has lines cobbled together and creativity is put down. The guy was the leading scorer on the team. I wasn't a fan of the later lines he played on prior to the shift to 3rd line, but at least he was playing with talent on one of the wings. Huberdeau was lousy on RW and that is somehow Kadri's problem? So now you have hands of stone Ritchie playing with him. Don't expect a pass. You want a Sutter team? Re-sign Ritchie and extend Lewis. Find some guys that are at the end of their career that won a cup and sign them. Don't use young talent unless they are willing to play 4th line grinder roles. And if you are on the ice for a goal against, you better be a vet or you will sit. Chop chop. I think you could probably find 6 coaches that could do as much or more with this roster, but actually have a plan to integrate new players and not just plan for one game ahead. I get the whole keep young players hungry argument, but he's just starving the players. No meal for them. No matter how much the other guys are full and maybe could skip a meal. I think a good many of us have suggestions for the lineup that would be no worse than what we see out there. Players aren't fitting together and it makes it look sloppy. Square pegs in round holes. You see a lack of energy and you play guys that have played every single game here or on their former club. You see our best passer on a line with no finishers and also want him to be the shutdown king. You see the one younger player trying to prop up guys that are due for retirement, even if they are swell guys and everyone roots for them to score. At this point it doesn't matter who is in nets, since whatever Vladar had is gone. Start Markstrom since he's your "Ace". Don't worry about the results, since he had a couple of really good games this season. It's been crap all year.

Think we are toast. Then again, I have said that more than once in the past two weeks. Still have a chance to hit 95 points, but now NAS is a single point back and an extra game; they can hit 96. WPG can hit 99 or still lead even with a loss to us. A loss to us and a loss to NAS, and they still are ahead of us.

Fatigue I guess he means is the long season wearing some guys down. They need to be in shape like Dube.

It means play Lucic woth the top line.....

Most exciting time was after we pulled the goalie. CHI so inept they missed 3 shots on the open net.

The number of times you change coaching is not material to if they are good or not. Every coach we have had has shown their worse side after a season of success. BH, Gully, BP, even Sutter. Boat anchor contracts do not play to their value level ever. We've seen one year of Kadri and one good year of Markstrom. Backlund is overpaid for his use here. Tanev is not really a boat anchor, just hard to justify when you can't afford other players. Coleman's deal is bad, no doubt. Jones, Nurse and Pietrangelo are boat anchor contracts, even if they score as much as Ras. We are 12th oldest, including players leaving such as Lucic and Lewis. Tampa, COL, BOS, Minny and CAR are 3-7th oldest. Whatever.

I don't think we are any worse at making mistakes than any other team. We just end up scooping the puck out of the net after. The 3rd goal was a bad line change but still had numbers. The 4th goal against wasn't even a breakdown. Teams get scored on those goals all the time. Goalie should have been in a better position.

The goals against is an outlier. We gave up scoring of about 20 goals overall. We also added a D capable of scoring 10 or so. We need some changes. Coaching is not using the players correctly IMHO. Some are just content to play out the string. Backlund may not be the problem, but he's not part of the solution. Tanev is a good soldier, but maybe we are starting to see the results of years of pain. Hanifin is risk/reward. If he has value, no reason to think we are that much worse off with a cheaper alternative. Mangiapane is frustrating, but maybe it's from always just playing with Backlund.

Lines and pairs against CHI: Mangiapane-Lindholm-Toffoli Huberdeau-Backlund-Coleman Ritchie-Kadri-Dube Lucic-Lewis-Duehr Weegar-Andersson Hanifin-Tanev Zadorov-Stecher Markstrom (Starter) Vladar

Might have been me. 95 is the lowest I think we need. WPG would need to go 2-2-1 for us to overtake them. 93 is possible to get in, but 2 of those points need to be against WPG. And they need to go 1-3-1. I don't think I can stand a 1-1 against CHI and WPG. Win both or lose both. Crap or get off the pot.

You are pretty negative towards players you have not seen play a single NHL game. With the current coach and play, you probably don't see them do much. It would be foolish to suggest we were ever in the running for Bedard. That ship sailed last year. Close to being a contender doesn't mean you rebuild. Even with this year's results, we are still farther away from a rebuild than a contender.