travel_dude

I thought Tampa did a great job in shot blocks. Who did we have doing that? Coleman? Lewis? Guddy and Zaddy at times. Watched Hanifin watch a puck blast by him. Same with Kyl. Not a lot of commit. The PK was better, in that they sacrificed. But at 5v5 and 4v4, we did little. IMHO. Yes, 100% we didn't get much grease against the Oils. Coleman called for goalie interference on a nothing contact and the non goal called by Bettman's Buddy Colie. I think in Dallas, we met a lot of that resistance, but they have good D. We seemed to stop trying to get inside. When we did, we got goals.

What does a bidding war look like. Like Buffalo for Eichel? As much as Buffalo got decent assets for years to come, they lost the trade. They soured the player and that's what happens before or during a "bidding war". I'm not saying you don't get a decent offer, but what of the player we lose? Even if I criticize his play about 50% of the time, he was a 40 goal/100 point player. What do we get that's close to that? If it's a C, then great. Except we have a hole at 1RW. Moving Lindholm there doesn't fix it, just make us the same at best. We have some work to do to sign the players we want, come under cap and still compete as in 21/22. Vegas will be back. The areas that killed us was spending 11M on Lucic and Monahan and not having the solid depth for that money. What killed us in the playoffs was having our best defense injured. Healthy Kyl-Tanev and we don't see the same problems. Maybe we don't win, but we don't see as many glaring errors.

I was out as soon as the Coilers had a good 2nd round. I have an outside chance, but Zib isn't enough to ofset the Douchebag Duo. Hehe, I really hate the Oilers. The CDN media is such a bunch of "one man shows" homers. This isn't McD vs Nate. It's the AVS vs the Oilers. Kadri, Nate, Rantanen, Landeskog, Makar, Nich, Toews.

I just think we lose any trade with Tkachuk going the other way. If some team wants to overpay by a wide margin then so be it.

Poor JJ would lose it if we failed to sign our "best prospect". I'm not here to suggest that he will be another Gaudreau or Mangiapane. Just that you sometimes have to wait a bit to see what you have. Junior not always a great predictor.

I think there were some things that made signing him before now a waste. There was no slide left. He would count as an active one and burn a year this past year. They had close to 50 contracts on the books at the time. Sign him now and he's active next season. I'm not saying they are signing him, just that there were good reason why they should wait.

We were pretty easy on Smith. When he was weak, we barely made it tough.

We were slow in the playoffs, but I think it was structure that let us down. We waited a bit long to set up the Backlund line. That left spare parts for the 3rd line. And a 4th line that got caved in. I think with a healthy Monahan we might have have a bit better structure with lines. So that leads me to believe we either need to target a C or we need Rozie to be ready to play 82.

I think if we are targeting a C, we should be thinking young. Necas has been slotted to wing, but I think he would be a decent buy before he explodes player. He won't be cheap.

I have no idea what VAN is thinking now. I suspect they want a re-tool again. So, it's JT for a 1st ++. Same with Boesser but for less. That's what I am thinking. They need a JT but want to pay less for a JT. I have no doubt that one of our biggest needs is a 2C. That's no slight to Backlund. We need that scary 2nd scoring line. I always though Toffoli could be part of it, but we don't have a Carter. As such, he's misused. The 2nd biggest need is a #1D. Maybe Ras gets there. Hanifin is what he is. Kylington has a bit more to give on offense and really needs to clean up other areas, but he's relatively cheap. And probably less value in a trade.

^^^ No big deal RD, but I actually have 8 players left. 3 of the COL players highlighted still in the game. Saying that, I only have a chance is Zib and Kreider score over Panarin and Fox. And McD/Drai shut down (oh so glorious).

West Final starts Friday against the Wolves. Wolf vs the Wolves. Heat furthest run for the Flames farm team. Best on Best.

I think there was some struggles to start the Q season, but supposedly he finished strong. Not sure that giving up his rights without seeing him play more than 4 AHL makes a lot of sense. As it stands, the number of AHL players expiring as either RFA or UFA is pretty high. I suppose another short winger doesn't exactly appeal to the team, but he's an asset.

The AVS play similar toughness that we tried to use, but were told we were not allowed against EDM. They can attack in waves. They have elite D that impact the play in the O-zone. EDM isn't even close in that respect. In fact, the weakest link for EDM is the D. I suspect a lot will depend on how the refs decide they want to call it. Can't just let CMD get the benefit of calls, as the AVS play with a similar speed.

Toffoli seems to be not getting a lot of love from fans on here. I get the arguments. As good as the Flames did this season, we have problems with depth scoring. Toffoli scored at a decent rate up till the point Monahan went off. His assist rate dropped from last regular season, but then again we weren't scoring a lot of goal on the 3rd line. Some of his points came on the PP, so it points to a weaker 3rd line as well. The eye test seemed to put off a lot of fans about his play in the playoffs. In the 2nd round, who exactly performed well? I think it's important that do a deep dive on players and their usage. We lack a #2C. We used Backlund as both a shutdown C and the 2nd scoring C. We used the 4th line to intimidate and create turnovers. Bottom line is that we have some scoring wingers and not enough places to use them. Hard to construct scoring lines when you have but one offensive C. I think the top line players are untouchable, as well as Mangiapane. Backlund is a player we still need. When they went to Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman, it seemed like we had solved the top 6. 3rd line is messed up. 4th line played the way we asked them to, but can't play them 10 minutes very often. The lack of depth really killed us. Not having a Monahan replacement.

Same on Phillips. As much as I think he could be as good as Yamamoto, we don't need Yam. You can play a guy like him if you have no other small players. Johnny and Bread. Dube isn't super small but seems that way in battles. Lewis - gotta love the compete level. Sutter wanted him because of his NHL and playoff experience. But we are moving to younger players and can't just keep doing it forever. In fact, the young guys are starting to get the experience. Ritchie was a fringe player that we kept in, regardless if the fit. Big body and not useless. 4th liner on an average team. 14F on a better one. We can probably do another year with Lewis. He doesn't need to be in every game. Unless he's that good. Ruzie and Pelletier are my first two choices, since I have no idea what we do with the D. I would use those two with Toffoli. 3 decent shots, two guys that can pass. Skill 3rd line. That puts the Bread line together. And we either have to maintain the top line or bing in a RW sniper. Think for a minute a top PP with Gaudreau, Lindholm and Laine. Or a scoring line of the same three. We lose some grit and maybe some passing, but have a bigger weapon. Maybe the fit isn't with Sutter though. Would be tough trade.

I'm not saying Dube is a bust or has reached his end. But on a team with 2 smaller wingers already, it becomes difficult to do more than he did. Him and Mange played similar minutes, but Mange got it done. Maybe Dube is just a C and we didn't use him right. On the wings pn entries he got crushed. Mangiapane got crushed on the boards more than on entries. Who knows if it's playing or not playing with Backlund. I rarely saw Bread taken out of a play for longer than a second. I suspect Rozie has first crack at C over Dube. Fair or unfair, he is what Sutter wants. Sutter just wasn't 100% happy with him. He had to steal a job in the top 9 to stick. If we had earlier injuries, he would have.

Barzal is also #13. Can't happen LOL In the crazy example of Barzal for Mange, why of course you look at it. But, let's remember that Mange also score a crap load more than Barzal. But who's counting. You want to maximize any asset you have. If Barzal is a #1C and can distribute the puck, then yes it makes sense. If he costs you $9m, then not so much. That's 2 Mangiapane's. Or 1.75 of him.

Calgary has until June 1st to sign Francis or they lose his rights.

18 points in 23 games while Monahan was still in the lineup. 5 points in 14 games after Monahan was shut down. He didn't fit the role of a scoring RW to finish the season or the playoffs. Especially on the PP. But, I'm not really sure what part of his game didn't fit the most. Sutter didn't really call him out. Not saying this is really fair but Dube had a much more disappointing playoffs.

We have seen a steady increase from Mangiapane, so I think it would be 100% backwards to trade him. Kadri will be as expensive on the open market as re-signing Tkachuk. Lucic and Monahan are the easiest cap savings we can get. And it likely means no other moves required. Valimaki has not shown anything yet, but we are quick to move Kylington even though he has? I would prefer to keep them both. Neither looked that good away from Tanev, but we are also talking about a post-injury Kyl. He almost never played away from Tanev all season. I'm just saying we can and should try to at worst stay the same. The only two players that didn't have a huge impact in the playoffs were Monahan and Lucic. Lucic was a threat to Benn after Tkachuk had fought twice. I like his game, but I think we have seen a downturn of Lucic over the last 4 months. Monahan is simply not the player he was and if he was healthy, maybe we do a bit better. But it's hard to say.

Players on the downside and/or likely to not improve next season: Lucic Hanifin* * Hanifin was solid all year, but I think we've seen about the best he can be. Players that couldn't help but be better over 82 games next season: Jarnkrok Monahan Toffoli Players that maybe we've only seen the early stages of a NHL career: Valimaki Kylington Dube* * I had trouble deciding if Dube will ever take his game to a new level; saw some spurts but nothing consistent. Players that should be equal or thereabouts as last season: Gaudreau Lindholm Tkachuk Mangiapane Backlund Coleman Ras Tanev Maybe we can't bring back everyone, but we were not far from a team that could contend with COL. GA was a great story last season and what would/should have made a difference in the playoffs. Toughness was a key attribute and we can't water that down too much. At the same time, we need to maintain the escape from the zone. I can see selling high on Kylington, but what do we get in return? Tkachuk may get you a Laine, but I doubt you get a #1C. Hanifin + Kylington + Zary + Monahan might get you Chychrun, but it sure kills the depth.

The score occurred because we had to play that way to win. Two EV goals against with Lucic on the ice. Two EV with Zaddy on the ice. One of them was both players. But there was some inconsistent stuff in the 1st period. Kane X-checks Ritchie and it turns into a scoring chance. Couple of minutes later Backlund pushes McD with his gloves and it's called a cross check. Lucic called as the only bad person after the clean McD hit. Freebie. It was the blueprint for the series. It just got unwatchable after game 1. While Marky needed to dial it in, the 3 goals by Hyman, Hyman and Draisaitl (sounds like a law firm) was blown coverage resulting in Marky playing too deep. Don't know what he was doing, but in close shots like that look worse because of the outcome.

Well, it comes down to camp, doesn't it. We didn't expect Kyl to make it out of camp. If Mackey has any hope, he has to outplay both Valimaki and Kyl in camp. If he does, we probably have to trade Valimaki. I think Zary is still too young and just really getting healthy. Duehr is a 14th type guy. I like Pospisil and he could be a Hathaway type. Fights too much for his own good but gritty. Kuze is too raw, but there is some hope down the road. Same with Poirier. Klapka is an interesting piece. He was targeted for a reason. Maybe a Ritchie or Lucic replacement. Too soon, as we don't even know if he can play in the NHL skill wise. Pelletier is the wild card. I think he could set up a solid 3rd line. Pelts-Rozie-Toffoli Might allow us to use Jarnkrok as a 4RW or 4C. If Lucic is done, then we build one that you don't worry about giving minutes to. We have to keep one cop on the roster to avenge Gaudreau or cheap hits. Would prefer a bit more skill than Ritchie.