travel_dude

The college route is definitely half closed if not entirely. I think we have stocked a bit just from college UFA's. As far as how other teams are doing and will do, it's hard to tell. The cap impacts how they manage thei teams in general. If they have players that can come in on an ELC, fine. But most of the players will have to adjust with salaries not increasing much. While our cupboard may seem empty, really that's just so-called early drafted players. Is Phillips any worse than Yamamoto?

To a certain extent, I think Holland was telling Tippett to sit Neal as long as he could without impacting the Oilers season. If they wanted him to play, he would have sooner. He was due to be back, then disapppeared again. While there is nothing wrong with a GM impacting a trade condition by not playing someone, it's not really the sprit of it. Holland came out pretty early and said that they didn't owe any 3rd. At that point the NHL had not determined those types of deals. While I may not agree with it, the NHL made a choice based on all of thie things that played into the results. An arbitor may have come up with the exact same decision.

Wow, just wow. That is a welcome surprise. Poor Holland is probably miffed.

For me, this playoffs will be his proving ground. BP was outcoached las year, and so far I haven't seen enough good decisions made in game to suggest that Ward is much better. While an early exit needs to reflect on the players, it also reflects on the coach. Was there something different he could have done or is he content with having a single plan and staying that plan till the bitter end.

It's a well thought out design for the logo. The menacing eye. The tentacles forming the S.

By his own admission, Gustafsson played a little too safe. Paired with Forbort, it wasn;t exactly a win. He closer to Hanifin than he is Shatty. But that's a personal opinion. What I do know is that he will be a lot cheaper than Hanifin. I don't blame Hanifin for struggling with Hammer. What I did see in him that I don't like is a tendency to get left behind when the play transitions the other way. His skating is good, but not Brodie good. He can carry the puck, but gets lost a bit after he enters the zone. A decent enough player, maybe just not worth $5m. If he isn't growing, he's not worth it.

I think the Flames expected and expect to see some progression by Hanifin. The playoffs could determine his fate, especially if they feel Gustafsson can provide similar stats at a lower price. Now if they happened to sign Pietrangelo, I think Hanifin will be shopped. That gives us a plan to replace Gio over time. Of the existing prospects, only Valimaki has the potential to replace him. In theory, we would have LD depth of Gio, Valimaki, Gustafsson, possibly Kylington and Mackey. RD depth would consist of Pietrangelo, Ras, possibly Kylington and Yelesin. With that, I could easily see Hanifin traded. Especially if Gustafsson could provide the same for less.

I'm okay with about 50% of Ward. I like his pholosophy and he is firm but fair. He doesn't overplay vets compared to young guys. What I don't like is his game prep or in-game adjustments. There's something missing there and hasn't really been there since BH. We have mostly the same personnel as last year, but I haven't seen things I like all the time. Sure, it's partly on the players,but I think he doesn't know how to get them going. You usually see about a period of what the team should be like the whole year. If they start out strong, the brakes are put on and it becomes prevent hockey. If they start out behind, he can mostly get them adjusted for the 2nd half or at least the 3rd. Only some games do you see the same from start to finish. A good coach shouuld be able to turn that around in the same period. I guess wwhat we have is things happening that de-motivate players before or during a game. Maybe no caoch can fix this team, though I think only 1/2 the team needs fixing. Lucic is a prime example, but he worked his tail off to get back in the good books. Others that remain nameless coast through games. They compete for 1/2 a shift or give up along the way.

What, are they focusing on being tough over being good now? Are they planning on selling off every decent player of age and doing a rebuild? Only keep togh guys to protect the young stars?

Summer Showcase cancelled..... Mike Morreale @mikemorrealeNHL USA Hockey announced it will not stage the 2020 World Junior Summer Showcase that was set for July 24-31 at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Mich. 11:30 AM · Jul 15, 2020

Changes to coaching can occur for many reasons after the end of the season. Some may have been on thin ice due to not making much progress or less results than expected. Other may look at doing a retool and the current guy is the wrong fit. Still others may be the wrong coach for the players they have. If Tampa doesn't go far, how would Cooper survive? He's had the reins for so long without getting anywhere recently. WAS and STL and BOS are probably the safest teams to be coaching.

Just thought that this would have been a great time to have his insights. There hasn't been a Flames-Jets series in....forever. I can imagine he will be up there cheering... The 7th man in the rafters. Do him proud Flames. Cheers!!

Well 10 teams can offer, but 10 teams do not offer a potential winning team. Of the good teams that he would make a difference on, do any of them have real needs? BOS has Krug going UFA, and Chara is like 100. But they have a young RD core that is pretty good anyway. They probably could fit him in cap wise. Who else really needs him? COL always has cap, but has Makar who already is a #1D.

Keeping in mind the expansion draft, I would hope that they are protecting a RHS D-man over Hanifin. In other words, make the trade and upgrade the position. It's possible they don't protect Gio, but it would be nice if we had a 3rd D-man protected that you can build a team around. In a perfect world, we target Pietrangelo and use Hanifin to get a RW or RHS-C. The Flames biggest roster problem is defense. If we fixed that alone we would be closer to contender than just trading or signing forwards. Scoring is not the biggest problem. When everyone is clicking, we can lead the league in scoring. Clean up the defense and even being a middle pack scoring team wins a lot more games.

Where I found that Ras excelled much higher than any other Flame was his ability to hold the blueline. Extra man situations, last minute of play in a tied or one goal down game, there was no other player I would want to see out there. The coaches recognized that pretty early this year. He's not without warts, but he brings what Hamonic offers (stand up for team - "BOOM"), smart coverage and offensive instincts. I remember reading that when MCDavid was on the ice with him, the coverage limited anything he was doing.

Well for sure any conditions tied to game played should be pro-rated. Stats not so much. The statement "making the playoffs" only means that they passed the preliminary round. That's easy. BT erred in tying Neal to 21 goals and not just the 10 more goals than Lucic. If Neal had scored 10 and Lucic 0, it still would have been a win for EDM.

By this point I suspect Oiler fans soured on Neal as well. He was replaced by a kid for one thing. Even his PP scoring dried up. I can't imagine they want to keep him long term, and buying him out is almost as caustic. Maybe they can trade him to PITTS for Jack Johnson. Or to New York for Strome.

Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing. No way is Holland going to follow anything other that actual totals in his stance. I don't even think he would agree to a lesser pick.

I'm assuming he returned to PEI after being fired. PEI is still in lockdown. They only started allowing people to cross the "border" into PEI or out for that matter. He wouldn't be able to fly anywhere for an interview outside of Canada. If he flew to Alberta, he has to isolate for 14 days upon returning home. He could have conversations, but let's face it you don't get that job on Skype. As for the coach's comments, he had said he would not return to coaching until next season. Things change, but I can't imagine him wanting to coach before then. Teams without coaches are going to evaluate where they are by the end of this season. More vacancies could be available after the season as well.

Gaudreau vs Monahan. Both are success stories. Maybe Monahan is not a top C in the league, but he is good player. Pelletier vs Mangiapane. Hard to call a late 1st to be anything other than success if he reaches 2nd line in the NHL. All the signs were there for Mangiapane to be that player if he could translate it to the NHL. The same signs are there for Zavgorodny and Phillips. The big difficulty is fitting them in a position to succeed. I guess to be fair, you have to look at the 2019 draft on the whole. Who among the top 31 players drafted do you see as being really special? Maybe a small handful, none of which were even available when we were picking. McMichael was about the best late round player available, but we will never know if he was going to get called. Of those "special" players, do any of them have a higher potential than Pelletier? Maybe a smaller list.

Hathaway was getting a raise here or elsewhere. He'll be around 32 by the time this deal expires. You can't pay that much for grit when you also have Lucic and Bennett and Tkachuk. Every team has it's own set of standards for drafting players. The scouts make the case for the BPA's. Often you miss out on the guy you want by a single spot. I haven't seen that may gems that we missed out on. We picked Valimaki over Thomas, who may be more than a 3rd liner. Missed out in the McDavid year on Aho, but got Ras. How a team drafts is often a reflection on the team. Slower, grinding teams prefer grinding forwards. Fast teams prefer skilled, smaller ones.

I think they tend to go for the guys with heart over the guys with size. Guys like our Pettersen. Not big, but not small. One thing we need to look at is where the Flames have drafted in recent years. Not a lot of 1st round picks. The last time we had a 2nd rounder was 2016. It's a numbers game for us. Not a lot of bigger guys are selected in the early rounds, a lot of why is available players. The bigger guys picked have a lesser chance of making the NHL because of where they ranked. So the pool of players we have looks smaller because the best one took the ball and ran with it. Ruzicka has a shot, but he's just starting. Phillips is just that much further ahead. Zavgorodny is going to do the same when he gets here.

I think you have to look at guys not playing on the top line to make a fair assessment. And you need longer than one playoff round to really make a blanket statement. We have lost in the playoffs for a lot of reasons, so simply saying Gaudreau was neutralized doesn't cut it. The entire top line was a no show, but mostly the two taller than 5'9". Tkachuk was a non factor and Backlund was not near his usual level. Not to mention the D. If a team ices a line of smurfs, you can expect that to be a difficult line to play against. You can't hit them easily. They may lose board battles initially, but they my still end up with the puck. What's left? Hooking, slashing and illegal hits to the head or boarding. Back to the point. The Flames have drafted player 5'10" or smaller 4 times in the past 7 drafts. That doesn;t make it an alarming trend. Only one player was selected higher than the 6th round. Two of them are NHL regulars. If you raise the bar to 5'11" then that counts for a lot higher percentage of NHL players.

There are exceptions of course. Mangiapane was kept to low minutes last year and was super efficient at scoring. He earned his way onto the 2nd line this year. Dube is sort of following that mold. While the Flames model may not be great for some of the players we have brought in, I think you have to ask yourself how much of it is the players themselves. Little guys like Gaudreau, Mangiapane and Dube have always been playing in the shadow of big kids. They have that competetive drive to be the best player on the ice. Huge chip. That is my belief why Gaudreau and Mangiapane have become good to great players, They had to skate faster, deke better and shoot more accurate to make up for the lack of relative strength. Bigger guys like say Lavoie have been the biggest kids on the team. They have not had to train as hard or learn the finer skills to get ahead. When they get to the pro leagues, that means more than just a hard shot or being big. When I look at the failed prospects, I see an alarming trend. As soon as they hit the AHL, they regress and never seem to gain any traction. Most or all go on to nothing careers. Klimchuk is a perfect example. It's the reason why I have great respect for players like Phillips who are the size of a players kid brother. They find a way. Pelletier is cut from that cloth. He may not pan out, but I suspect he will be something closer to Mangiapane than Nemisz.. It's also why I see great potential in Zavgorodny.