travel_dude

Give them a few years. Some players take longer, especially when they were injured most of the year.

Zona is winning a lot. MTL the only ones to not be able to win. We are likely to win a few (I keep saying that). Still don't have a feel how we will do against the remaining teams. Ducks taking STL to a shootout. Yotes killing the Sharks.

Some days Connie says the right things, then some days I hear the thoughts about looking to rebuild quickly. Maybe it's just concern on my part, but I feel that they might just try to getting back to compete. Decisions like keeping Markstrom even if the offers are there. Or go big on UFA's thinking they can get back to top 16. It may all be needless worry on my part.

Even if Kylington is back, that doesn't give us the stability we need next season, unless you are looking to finish bottom 10. Kylington is best paired with a Tanev like defensive D. Pachal is okay, but has a lot of growing to do to get there. He has less games than Kylington. When I look at who we have signed or likely to extend, I don't get a warm fuzzy feeling: Andersson Weegar Miromanov Pachal (signed - waivers) Hanley (signed - waivers) Okhotiuk (RFA - waivers) Kylington (UFA) That's too many 4-7 guys. I would be reluctant to put Pachal on waivers. Okhotiuk has about the same number of games as Pachal and also requires waivers. I can't really come up with pairings that leave me confident, seing as we have seen Ras paired with most of the top 4-ish guys we have. Bringing in a top 2 LD might help, but I think that only solves one issue.

I seem to remember that we traded away three "core" pieces of the lineup just prior to TDL. His value will be whatever teams are interested in a goalie, not so much his season finish. I'm more concerned that they decide they need to keep him during the re-tool so we don't finish last.

The safe player option is so mundane for us to consider. They might be a good player long term and have a good NHL career, but is that enough? Monahan was a safe pick and could have been a great pick if injuries hadn't derailed his career. Tkachuk was a strong pick, but we managed a top 5 pick that year. Unless we have a shot at a top pairing D potential this year, I would lean towards a risky F. More towards a C or C/RW than anything on LW. Iggy Jr is a sentimental pick and probably a safe one. Would the name alone make fans question the logic of it?

Yikes, a top 10 featuring 5 F, not to mention the top 20 consising of 14 F. Isn't this considered a D heavy draft? Anyway, what do I know.

If we end up 8th, we get passed by the 9th place team with a unlikely lotto win. There are teams that never win lotto picks. The year Lafrenier went 1st, NY was 16th and ended up 1st. If the odds were that unlikely for a team out of the top 5 to win, how did they? Not really serious. I hope we geta good player at 8.

We are well below 500 in that 10. Ottawa and MTL both at exactly 500 Zona is 6-4-0 last 10. It's too hard to say how they play the remaining games. All of those teams of capable of beating any NHL team.

I mean it's quite possible that the coach knows a lot more about what the players are doing than us casual observers. For instance, Huberdeau could suck in a game but he is still giving 100%. When Weegar is talking about floaters, I honestly have no idea who he means. Guys that won't block a shot (Backlund)? Guys that avoid hits? No idea.

Honzek was a player picked in range of when we picked, so it was a safe pick if you like. I think there were better choices than a LW, though I think Connie suggested he was a C. If all that is available at our turn is a LHS LW, then I would look elsewhere. Trade down a spot or two, and still get the best avaiable RW/C/D. Honzek can play because in the AHL of the November birthday. I think we get a very good pick wherever we finish. SEA and BUFF pulling away from us. I don't think it matters if OTT or MTL passes us, because one of them will win the lotto.

What Huska said about Zary is appropriate. He said young guys don't deserve to play if they aren't playing at their best. He quoted Weegar's comments about showing up. The only issue I have with that is that some of the vets are in that boat but never get sat. Zary maybe deserved to sit, though I thought he was no worse than his linemates that last game.

I don't know the stories of the other players nominated, but at quick glance it was players that were injured, or had a long road to the NHL. Hrumph. There are guys deserving no doubt. Maybe Kylington doesn't match all the qualities necessary, but he is certainly a shining example of what tolls the sport can take on a person and what it might take to make it back. I personally think it's the kind of story that the NHL needs to show at this point. Fighting, scandals, rapists (suspected), CTE, player gambling, player douchebaggness; nice to have positive stuff for a change.

I didn't pay attention to the post draft available players. At the time, I had a couple of players I really didn't want and had at least one on IR. You have to round out your lineup early on for sure. But adding a player as they start to break out is a good thing too. Sometimes I held on to a player too long, other times I gave up too early. The biggest mistakes I made was adding and dropping players based on schedule. There were a few weeks that I had all players on the same night, then nothing the next day. That's okay for a short time, but you have to look farther ahead. A short term fix sometimes made it worse. It's fun to add and drop, but usually I added and dropped at the wrong time.

This season for me will go down as close but no cigar. My pre-draft ranking were big mistakes. Went high on D, so I drafted a lot of D. I have very few other players that met their draft rankings. My best pickups were Weegar and Sharky. Some of my higher draft picks were dropped. I had Couture for what seemed ages. Closest I got to Rocket was about 200 points in the middle of the season. Then the bottom fell out. No better than 4th this season.

I think there are just certain people who's gate and skate don't lend themselves to speed. Choppy skaters. Or they may be slower looking because they can't handle the puck at speed. Monahan was NHL size, so I think the only thing is whether he would have been better off in Junior and then AHL. I don't see what that does to the natural skills the guy had. He was never going to be Matthews. He could have been injured before a playoff game in Detroit riding a scooter. The advantage of youth is the less brittle bones. But if they don't take care of the pieces that need fixing, he's 30 and they just seem to have found it all.

So, he stays in junior for another year (or 2), then either goes to the AHL or NHL. Not sure how any of that makes his career the same duration. Also I would suggest that his injuries could have been worse elsewhere. If anything, the decisions to play him injured was the big mistake made. If he was playing with Johnny today, the guy would have 40 goals, he looks better. I think the play don't play right out of junior is more appropriate to a player that may be out of his realm. Too light. Too soft. Only excels against kids. You probably can make a fair judgement in 9 or less.

So, the two slowest skares on CGY were both played in the NHL too early? Monahan and Tkachuk. Sorry, I don't think so. Skating wasn't going to somehow get better playing in a slower league. And when you are a certain type of player and you are assigned that role by the coach, whatevs. I may lean that way with Bennett, but I think they failed to develop him in the NHL. He was coming off an injury and they opted to play him in the playoffs. Of course they keep him in the NHL after the way he played there. It was the years following that the problems developed.

The team that has struggled to gain traction in a rebuild the most, seems to be ARI. They somehow didn't win the lotto when they weren't 5th last. Teams that had no business winning the lotto were winning it. The league had to come up with the EDM rule of lotto wins. EDM had the following placement in drafts and only now seems to have taken any kind of step: 2007 - 6th, 2008 - 22nd, 2009 - 10th, 2010-2012 - 1st/1st/1st, 2013 - 7th, 2014 - 3rd, 2015 - 1st, 2016 - 4th, 2017 - 22nd, 2018 - 10th, 2019 - 8th, 2020 - 14th, 2021 - 22nd So, more of an example of ineptitude in using the riches to any meaningful way. I have no real belief that we would win the lotto. If the system is fixed, then a team opening anew arena in the coming years will win it. I don't know how you rig a lotto, but if you could, the results back that up. I don't subscribe to the conspiracy theory but would laugh if we somehow won it this year.

To put it in perspective, Weegar is on year 1 of his 8 year deal. He just turned 30 and has one season more of production to equal Ras. Neither of their windows is 2-3 years, unlike Markstrom. I know that's not what you suggested, but the point is we can or do have them locked up. The last 5 players we traded were not Flames drafted, just UFA's or trades we received. Only Tanev was an age vs re-signing cost. The rest didn't want to be here. It's a business, so trading to get better is a fact. Trading to get a single draft pick doesn't always make sense. Not when that player has a long time that they can remain productive.

Every year there is a shoulda-woulda.

Iggy, Iggy, Iggy.... I hope we don't draft him. I think we have pressing issues not solved by drafting based on a name.

5 wins is pretty ambitious. There is a B2B that I would consider a schedule loss. Add that 2 to WPG, EDM and VAN games. The 3 home games against the spoiler teams might be wins, but I think that's also not a given. Currently we sit at 8th. It's just as likely we only keep pace at 8th.

If there is a specific player available earlier that we know won't reach us, I can see offering a 3rd or later to move up, but we aren't talking about moving to the top 15. What would we be able to trade to get an additional 1st? Markstrom holds the greatest value that we are willing to part with. Other than that, I don't see it.