travel_dude
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Everything posted by travel_dude
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Gaufreau was getting double-shifted a lot under both Gully and BP. The problem was he was trying it for the wrong reason. You do that with a line where his style of play fits. Bump him up to play with Monahan/Backlund or Lindholm, where he's adding if he's playing well. I am a bit confused about the 2nd line though. IIRC, Monahan said he was still playing C on that line, so that would mean Backlund is LW. That seems to be different than the posted lines.
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No doubt you will see Gaudreau playing some shifts with the top line. It really depends on the success of the lines as they exist, but with last change, the Flames will try to use Gaudreau against lines/pairs that he does well against. My beef with BP was his inability to try new things for any length of time. You have to look at more than just the results. He would always revert to the default lines.
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Well, recency bias seems to play a big part of perceived value. Gio didn't go from Norris to crap. He's slipped from last year's stats back to what he typically would produce. 0.5 p/gp is nothing to sneer at, and the value of those D-men is always high. When he starts trending in the right direction, his value will come back up. Same holds true for Gaudreau, if you consider this to be necessary. Blowing up the team isn't the only way to win. Identifying pieces that aren't helping that are just spending money is part of building a team. So far, we are just being nice guys and paying people for trying. Or for what we are expecting them to become.
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Instead of playing hard, they seemed like they felt this was a scheduled win. Some lazy play. I feel like the only thing keeping them afloat is PP goals. Goaltending is returning to the norm. Smith and Costco both starting to play like they did last year.
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I think the message got mixed up somehow. Nowhere was the narritive that we got beat up in the playoffs. Not by BT, the players, whatever. Our solution was half baked. Add grit in exchange for uselessness. Nothing wrong with that move, and I am loathe to suggest Lucic brought anything else. What about speed through the neutral zone? Preventing zone entries? Being hard on the puck? The attempted trades might have addressed that. The actual trades and signings didn;t really do it. Gio's and Hamonic's speed are being exposed now as well. Double edge sword traing either or both now. I was on the keep Hammer side, now not so much. Are we talking about drafting or goalies? Okay, so decide which goalies you are going all in on, and turf the rest. Be honest with the current D and decide if it's the right time to trade Gio, Hamonic or anyone else. Look at the forwards and decide if we need more defense, skill, speed, grit, or bite.
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I wonder if you are talking about gritty players or cheap players. Cheap players are guys like Perry. Gritty players are guys like Benn, Bennett. If you look at the 2012 Janko draft, there were a lot of misses by teams from 12 onwards. Guys like Hertl and Wilson had little on their resumes at the time, so drafting them was lucky. High-end players come from drafting in the 1st round, or lucky picks like Kucherov. TBH, you need to take care of D first, since they take longer to graduate. We wasted picks on guys like Poirier, Klimchuik, and Lazar (2nd). Wasted Granlund (2nd from 2011) on Shinkaruk. Funny how we were in on Kucherov in 2011, but waited too long to select him. And selected Wotherspoon and Granlund first. Yeah, okay. I think there is a disconnect between the goalie drafting in North America vs Europe. Maybe that came about later, due to a concerted effort to look at Europe. It sucked before. Both pro and amateur. Ortio and Irving. Berra, JoeyMac, Hiller..... After all, we had Johnny at BC and we watched Demko play really well, yet chose Mason MacDonald?
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I think the trade returns and the ROR fiasco had more to do with the firing than the Chia Syndrome. Kipper blocked a trade and decided to "retire" after that sequence of events. While Burke said the 1st round picks were A+ (publically), the other things made Feaster look like an idiot right away.
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Nothing like letting a lawyer decide a team's future. This should have been a firing offense. Instead we let this bozo try to sign ROR to an OS. Trade Iggy and JBow for spare parts an a lousy 1st that he wastes.
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Without the 2nd highest scoring PP, EDM would be closer to the basement. They haven't made a lot of changes to the PP that was really bad last year, other than not having Lucic.
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They have 2 good players. They can't even separate them for a game. The onlty B2B games they get seem to be against a team that also played the night before. As long as Smith is on old man's reserve, they have a chance to keep winning at 50% or better. If you get a chance, watch the two penalties that Nurse drew last night against Eriksonm
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Jakob Pelletier - 2019 1st round pick
travel_dude replied to cross16's topic in Calgary Wranglers and Flames Prospects
I thought he was not quite ready in camp. Give it another year and see where the kid is. Next season he will still be too young for the AHL, but doesn't mean he's not ready for the NHL. Unfortunately, he either plays NHL or is sent back to junior. -
Talbot has done well against LA and ANA. Played well enough against DAL. I would give Talbot LA, COL, Minny and maybe CHI. Maybe MTL because they suck right now, but they are a desperate team.
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Last week was supposed to have a scheduled start for Talbot, but, ya know the whole BP situation needed to have the Flames go with the regulars. Rittich will probably get the start against Buffalo so he's not unplayed for too long. Rittich will get Buffalo, Talbot LA, Talbot either COL or ARI, Rittich TOR, Talbot CAR. They will try to get Talbot 2 in a row at times.
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We sure missed the boat on Ortio and Irving. Those guys are studs in the Swiss and Austrian leagues.
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And Gillies has a record of 4-3-4 with 903 and 2.68 GAA. Which proves nothing
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Calgary Flames Drafting and Development: Your Analysis
travel_dude replied to rickross's topic in Flames Talk
It's hard to say what we have. Some guys with really good junior numbers struggling a bit in the pros. Have two killers in the Q. Either could make the NHL next season. -
I agree.
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I won't put words in JJ's mouth, but he's of the belief that you draft the winner and they start in the NHL by age 20. There's so few examples of that. That's his pie in the sky, pink unicorn. The problem is that you rarely are able to draft that player and draft the rest of the core and keep the right pieces in place long enough to win the cup. MAF was lucky to play on a team able to outscore teams 6-4 in the playoffs. Bing was lucky to play on a team that used grit at the right time and depth scoring to finish off the playoffs. Quick managed a cup because the slow, defensive structure was the right fit at the tight time. Holtby managed to stop just enough to let a superior team show why they were superior. No magic pill here. Find the best goalie you can and surround them with the right team at the right time.
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When you look up and down the lineup, do you see some problems with line design? Any issues with last change advantage not being used properly? Any issues with Bennett playing little minutes and Lucic on the PP? Forget about last year. It's not the same team. He coached the offense out of the top line.
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I don't think it's cliche at all. As much as I have supported BP for the results he was able to achieve last year, it hasn't worked this year. Frustration was there the end of the season. It got worse. There are simple things Wardo can do that don;t take a lot. Don't assume that a role player needs to take a bigger role, just because he's able to handle it. Lucic is fine for about 10 minutes, but after that he's slowing down the line. Give some trust to those that eeked out decent seasons last year. Work on the most inept part of the game to start; PP. The idea of using Tkachik on the wall is dumb. Gio is okay, but he's not generating anything positive. Two things there; role players and PP. Beyond that, he has to look at 5v5 to see what's not working. Power vs power is fine, if the top line is clicking, but asking them to sacrifice offense to prevent goals is like holding a 1-0 lead in the 3rd. We aren't scoring this way and we have last change for the next three games.
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Sometimes any change can be good. Give the PP to someone else. It's not working. I don;t expect to see too many line changes right now. Too many distractions to implement wholesale changes. Saying that, the Flames have 4 days off after the SENS game. Some of that is probably mandated days off, but they should have plenty of time to evaluate new ideas.
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Dougie was a guy that scored a lot but you had to carry him around. Gio was able to excell once he was gone again. THis is a down yeat on the team. Nobody has looked good, so I'll hold off on Hanifin until we see sho he finished the season with.
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I would miss the interaction if you did. 😃 When we get back in the playoffs this year and we don;t have ancient Smith posing as a starter, maybe we can have someting positive to agree on.
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The Official Calgary Flames "New Arena" thread
travel_dude replied to DirtyDeeds's topic in Flames Talk
Re-affirnmed means the "deal" is still in place. Nothing is different than it was before the motion. -
Clearly you will never be happy. A 2nd year NHL goalie is showing he is capable of being a (really good) starter and you complain that he's over the hill. Or is it you complain about Zagidulin, who is older than a lot of goalies but has developed into a good goalie that needs to learn the NA game. I am with you on development not being great here, but part of that is the quality of prospects isn't it. MM over Demko. Gillies over anyone else. Not everything is a slam dunk. I would prefer that they just dump Gillies and move on. This is pretty much last chance territory, but they are at least giving him a shot. Probably wasting a year, but whatever.
