travel_dude

The Oilstains have done a lot in the off-season. Replaced a guy who will miss the entire season, or so was recently decided. Brought back Olli, er I mean Puljujarvi. Signed a couple of guys that they can hold accountable for missing the playoffs. Signed Turris after a season where he was a minus player and bought out. Said to be high on fixing the goaltending situation. Solution - re-sign Smith.

Just looking at CDN teams versus CDN teams, We have done pretty well, and EDM is about 50/50. EDM has made changes that could be for the better, but I'm not convinced. They have 2 players they hope will have turnaround season; Turris and Pooly. Hope. Both were less than stellar their last season played. Ennis played a few games and was injured. Kahun is one of those players you expect to have a good season. But is it any different than Rieder? Looked good until he went to EDM. I don't know how I would rank the teams. Toronto was the best performer last year. EDM was okay, but really no better than CGY. And we were slumping.

There's no good solution with off-topic posts. The People initially responded by pointing to a place where this belongs. I understand what you are saying, but the back and forth has to move out of here. Impact of COVID to NHL hockey and the Canadian division is all we should be talking about here. That's still pretty broad a topic, but let's keep the other stuff in the other thread, okay?

I'm just not bying the hype with EDM. Last year they should have ridden the top NHL scorers and top PP and 2n PK to higher heights. Goaltending, sloppy defense and mostly one dimensional offense let them down. Their top 2 were minus players. They have at most 3 good to great players. And players who ride coattails. Defense is worse subtracting Klefbom. They had a goalie who despite his advanced years made the team believe they could win games. And he stunk out the joint in as many games. Their biggest improvements are a full year of Ennis, another fading star in Turris, and Kahun. Oh, and a NHL player that went to the Finnish league for a break from small ice. Kahun could be the 2nd coming of Rieder or a new threat. It's anyine's guess. Toronto seems to struggle aganst half of the teams. WPG is tsruggling to keep players and ice a NHL defense. MTL added a bit and play an uptempo game. VAN could drop unless Hotlby/Demko are unworldly. OTT is Ottawa.

Well, if the thought was to move CGY's and EDM's AHL teams to the respective cities, remember that they both also have WHL teams to fit. The cost to move to CGY and EDM would be cost prohibative. That is not to say that they couldn't move to another city. Where though? Red Deer? Similar COVID issues as CGY and EDM. Manitoba is out probably for the near to distant future. Toronto and Montreal are probably no better off than CGY or EDM. The logical solution would be two fold. One is to have a taxi squad. They practice with the team. Consists of one goalie, 2 D-men, and 3 forwards. The salaries are not applied to the cap. They practice with the team. They get their AHL pay unless playing NHL. The 2nd is the AHL teams play in the US. The teams would need to play in cities allowed to under US and local rules. California may be out, but we will see later. There is no Canadian AHL teams playing at home. Logistically, the AHL faces more challenges than the NHL.

Nothing wrong with that setup. The 3rd line I assuming that Dube plays RW and Mangiapane plays LW, since Mangiapane played there with Backlund. It may be a bit much to expect Leivo to be able to play top 6, but I think you need to try it. I don't know what Lucic-Ryan-Simon would look like, since Ryan is less gritty than Bennett. He does match up RHS with Lucic though. I'm concerned about Gio-Tanev, but if Tanev is playing top 4 minutes, then keep him away from Hanifin. Hanifin-Ras should be the top pairing for minutes. See if Hanifin can rider to it. Valimaki is the wildcard; he could be reasy for top 4 play.

At this point, the start date for the AHL is February 5th. That creates a big issue for any club with current roster limits. If you can only have 23 players on your roster, the other guys that could be injury replacement sit idle. What makes this worse is that we have a farm team in the US. Any player on that team in the US would need 14 days isolation before being allowed to even practice. It only hurts Canadian teams. I know what you are suggesting, but I don't see it working. There's quite a few Canadian teams that have Canadian AHL teams, but not out west. CGY, EDM and VAN all are US based. Manitoba and Toronto are fine. Ottawa has Belleville, MTL has Laval. The three teams from the west would need to fold up in those US arenas.

It's tough to point to any one series and suggest it's a measuring stick. We played Dallas and relied on goaltending keeping us in games. Surprise, most NHL teams that go anywhere have that. Dallas had it and so did TBL. For me, the most concerning thing about the coach was a couple of odd coaching moments that decided two games. One was leaving out a tired group to defend a one goal lead. The second was the decision to not call a time out in the deciding game. Whether it was a mistake to not call a timeout or leave in Talbot with no reset or for letting Rittich stay on the ice after his early struggle, ultimately it was a coaching moment. There were some good things in the series and some bad things. I don't think the series showed we know how to play the right way. Top line being shut down 5v5, yet they were being trotted out to start in the D-zone. Defensive zone miscues. Take a big lead and not know how to even defend the pushback.

Generally, your top producing forwards are your "primary" players. They produce the most and get the most minutes. Only 3 D-men exist that played the entire season here. The 3rd pairing is up in the air; it's slated to be two of Valimaki, Nesterov, Kylington, Mackey. Whether they use Tanev on the top pair or elsewhere, we are not the same.

I think you don't move Mangiapane from playing with Tkachuk and Backlund. Maybe substitute Lindholm in there, but that strips the top line. And moves Backlund to 3rd line and Bennett to LW or #4C. I don't mind moving Lucic to the 4th line. Keep him with Ryan at C and maybe Simon on RW. My suggestion: JH-Monahan-Lindholm (make or break) Mangiapane-Backlund-Tkachuk (best line in 2nd half) Dube-Bennett-Leivo (player on strong sides) Lucic-Ryan-Simon (some scoring ability, a little grit)

Leivo played 36 games last year and was close to 0.5 p/gp. The most games he has played in one season is 49 games. Dube has played all of 70 NHL games in 2 seasons. I gave three options if you kept the top 3c's as being Monahan, Backlund and Bennett. One of them was with Leivo on the top line. I get what you are saying., but Mangiapane plays LW, so you would need to move Gaudreau to RW. Do you want to do that? Dube is on a similar dollar amount deal to Leivo. To me it's about balance and what looks best performance-wise. Leivo is a RHS. Dube played the off-wing with Bennett and did quite well, for part of the season and playoffs. If Dube isn't ready for top line, why move him there. I don't know if he is ready.

Unless something else major happens, I see Bennett as the 3rd line C. I don't know how that impacts wanting to use Lindholm at C, other than he could be a C/RW on Bennett's line. Use Lindholm the same way they did on the top line - strong side draws. I guess it all depends on how players look at main camp. Lucic is the guy that should possibly drop to the 4th line. That assumes they use Leivo in the top 9. If you want to break up the top line but keep Lindholm as a RW, insert Leivo in his place. Lindholm is your 2RW. Gaudreau-Monahan-Leivo Tkachuk-Backlund-Lindholm Mangiapane-Bennett-Dube Lucic-Ryan-Simon Lindholm as your 3C/RW: Gaudreau-Monahan-Leivo Mangiapane-Backlund-Tkachuk Dube-Bennett-Lindholm Lucic-Ryan-Simon I don't mind either of those scenarios. The line playing the most 5v5 is the one going that night. Lindholm is not used as a permanent C, just for strong side draws. The 4th line is expensive, but who cares. Play the lines that play the best.

I don't remember the frequency, but I thought there were examples of breakaways by Johnny in the playoffs. The stretch pass wasn't used as much, but then again we didn't have the best D this past year for that. You can probably think back to the AVS series of trying to do that way too much; they were expecting it. What may also have lessened it this year was that the top line faced either better D (better awareness) or defensively responsible F's. I think there is a tendency for our memories to align to what our opinion was. You get a WTF moment in a game and it shades all the play for that game. Bottom line is the top line had some very good games and some games where they couldn't get out of their own way. I would write off anything prior to January. Having Backlund as a winger didn't make any sense overall. Like Cross, I suspect this is a big season for the direction of the Flames. Is Gaudreau the right person to base a top line on? Not just whether he intends on re-signing. If so, what are they going to do to utilize his special talent (no, not like the movie The Jerk). Can they build on it to have a line like Kane has in CHI? How do you minimize the negatives that come with any player?

It's hard to tell what Gaudreau can be in the playoffs because the sample size is usually so small. He was effective on the PP this year, but spent the rest of the time with one line. That line wasn't effective 5v5. Instead of providing prime zone starts, he spent a lot of the time starting in the D-zone. No excuses; he needs to dig in. We lost the series because they didn't do enough 5v5. Do I think he can adapt? Sure, as long as the coach does too. It's not like the top line was killing it and cooled off; they were basically inept from game 1. No change to the deployment much through 10 games.

Considering how well Bennett played with Dube and Lucic, I think they missed an opportunity last playoffs. Monahan with Lucic and Lindholm may have been able to do thing. For sure, Bennett flying and Dube stealing the puck would have made some difference. It comes down to having options. When playoffs rolled around JH-Monahan-Lindholm was the only option used for the top line. It should have been dealt with when they were unable to generate any scoring 5v5. It wasn't, so we had to rely on Bennett, Dube and a few others.

So true. Whether it was him thinking one move (one move only) or just not being confident, it impacted his finishing ability. I wouldn't mind him going 5 hole, if it was once in a blue moon. He's selling it as 5 hole, so he's going to get burned. It would also be nice if someone could keep up to go to the net fterwards or even skate with him for a 2-1 or 2-0.

I didn't really like ol' Blasty. This is at least a decent color scheme though. Only have to look at it a couple times this season. Let's hope it will be a winner's jersey.

It's a season where you can't really predict the outcome with different results. Flames would have faced VGK in round 2. Nucks would have faced AVS. You can't extend a Flames victory over the Stars to a victory over VGK. But, what killed the Flames against Dallas would not be there. VGK beat the Nucks but it wasn't a blowout series. The thing about the Dallas series was that it eliminated the top line 5v5. Would that be true against the VGK? Not so sure of that.

Tampa had one more player than CGY score more than 20 goals. The big difference in scoring was from the D. Gio was the highest scoring one with 31 points. They had Sergachev, Hedman and Shattenkirk all score more than 30. Were they deeper? Sure, they added Maroon for less than $1m. Traded a pick for Coleman. Added Shattenkirk for less than $2m. They will be lucky to keep the team together (hint - they can't). Next year they have $11m left with only 12 players signed. Tampa was lucky to have the playoffs they had. Everything working at the right time and the payroll under the cap at the right time.

I know this is going nowhere, but anyway... You have a top line that has progressed every year, yet you somehow feel that they are more likely to repeat a down year. In the last 4 years, other than 18/19, Gio was around 25 assists, 14 or less on the PP. Gaudreau and Monahan increased their totals over those 4 years. You could argue Gio is in decline, but that doesn't extend to the rest of the top line. Gio's SH% dropped by 50%, which is a good indicator why his points dropped. It's fine to trash the team because you don't like the players or style. Also okay to trash the GM because they made mistakes. Giving up a 1st for Hamonic was wrong. Would you have given up a 1st for Blake Coleman or JT Miller? How about Barclay Goodrow? There are so few teams that are able to make the playoffs every year. The ones that have missed because of a rebuild are still rebuilding. And likely to continue that trend. Should Tampa have rebuilt after a first round sweep last year? Maybe they got it right by adding for the now instead of hoping for the future.

We didn't max out on players this season, whether we had an overall healthly team or not. Top line underperformed. Top pairing underperformed. 4 line a mess at times, two players struggled to score and keep the puck out of our net. Lucic got to the point of retiring. Hamonic a defensive liability. All that and we were climbing the standings. What is in the pipeline? Depends what the timetable is, doesn't it. One year (this season) - decent 2 way C/RW and a small player that has done nothing but score at every next level Two years - undersized LW who is 100% compete, smaller RW who has could be a sleeper and one offensive D-man Three years - Zary, Pettersen, Wolf While none of these scream starting lineup, our roster is not built to only compete for a year or two. Need guys to step up to take over for Gio and Backlund, but potential is there.

He's a fringe players right now for the Flames. If they want to keep him under control, they can just offer him a 2 year deal. So, let's say for sake of argument they can do as you suggest. Why does it make sense to re-sign a guy without knowing if he will even takes steps. And you are doing that for an AAV of $2m. They kept Mangiapane at one year and they pretty much knew he would have a breakout year. He was still just making minimum. No idea about when they can re-sign him. The league and PA might frown on it due to cap circumvention and not fairly negotiating.

The criticism of the top line is valid. An "expiring" blueline is a little harder to gauge. We lacked a decent shutdown top pairing minutes guy. Hamonic would have been the closest thing, as Gio is more of a cross between offense and defense. Gio, in my mind, was a big disappointment this year's playoffs. He was okay against a neutered WPG team, but was oberwhelmed against Dallas. And when we needed Tkachuk's line to step up, he was concussed. The hardest thing to predict is where a team is when healthy. Had we not lost Tkachuk, did we have enough to compete against VGK? I can't tell. Different teams and style. Top line or Tkachuk's line could have well lit up VGK. I have my doubt that we would have beat them, but I think that's more on our defense. Let me circle back to my point. I can't tell you whether (Tanev + Valimaki + Nesterov + Markstrom + Leivo + Simon + Nordstrom) - (Talbot + Brodie + Gus + Forbort + Janko + Rieder) is better or worse. We were lacking a defenseman's defenseman. Goaltending let us down at a key point, but the D had a part to play in it. Almost half of each player's points were on the PP. Some were almost entirely on the PP. Even Bennet had 4 or his 8 points on the PP. The difficult thing to determine is whether we addressed the deficiencies that lead to our defeat. Regular season may help answer that, but playoffs can just be wrong seeding early on. We have to have a backup plan since things change and there is no time to react. Tkachuk goes down and we have no 2nd line threat. Gio struggles and there is nobody to take those minutes.

If you are talking D, the Flames have a number of prospects and young players that are excelling. Poirier - over a p/gp in the Q. Kinnvall (R) - 40 points in 51 games last year and 11 points in 8 games this year in the SHL. While Poirier has a lot to learn, he has the offense part figured out. Kinnvall is excelling in a league that produces top players. People tend to forget how young Ras and Valimaki are, by NHL standards. On a good team they are at least top 4. Playing with a decent partner, I even expect Hanifin to take some steps. Getting 2nd and 3rd pairing guys to fill the roster is not as difficult. There is a tradeoff between bigger players and smaller skill guys. The big guys take more hits. The smaller guys expose slower big players. Dallas went to the SCF becuase of goatending and mobile D. The lost because they weren't able to defend against waves of offense. That consisted of 9 forwards 6'0" or less.

Maybe you can evaluate the current roster during or after the coming season. But I guess it's far easier to criticize and say they are nowhere close to being a contender. That way you have a higher probability of being right unless the Flames happen to win the cup. And that could even be the result of an opponent being injured (Hedman misses the SCF). I don't think anyone here is satisfied with losing in round 1 or 2.