travel_dude

Every goalie is at risk to get injured and have it impact their play. Not saying it's 100% true that he was, but last year it seemed that it was like a light switch, not a gradual decay. I'm as concerned about any goalie we have maintaining his play through the season. Last year, we rode Rittich too hard at times, mostly due to Smith being crap. Injury concern, lax play or burnt out, Rittich sat more games in the early spring. Manage the starts better and that may not be as likely to happen. I'm more concerned with Talbot being able to handle 40 games at this point. If he's another Lack, then we will be forced to live and die with Rittich, which sets him up for regression or injury. The only thing positive about our goaltending is we don't have to suffer through another year of Smith's ups and downs.

There was a game where he was shaken up, and Hrudey mentioned it looked like he tweaked his knee. For some reason, I think it was the game in Carolina. He played the whole game, but didn;t look right the next game against the Sharks. That game in Carolina was the 9th wn in 11 games for the Flames. Including the CAR game, Rittich had just rattled off a 9-0-1 record in 10 starts. After the CAR game, he was pulled, lost in OT, let in 6 goals, won two games, let in 6 goals. It would make sense that the CAR game was the injury. He wasn;t as sharp afterwards. SJS was almost as if BP knew his knee was flaring up. Pulled him as much for health as two bad goals.

What is strange is the splits between home and away: More losses on the road, with a better SA% and GAA. Two losses in regulation or OT at home....the whole season. He came in on relief twice at home; once against PITTS in the "Tear it Down" game, and once against Philly, where he brough them home to a win.

When you look at the post January stats, after it was pretty clear he had injured himself, he was ok not great. Two bad games of 6 goals (TO and TBL), while the rest of the losses were 2 or 3 GA. So, it begs the question if he is likely to get injured or he has trouble late in the year. Their starts Feb.1st onward: Rittich 7-5-1 (pulled after 2 goals vs SJS) since Feb.1st Smith 9-7-1 since Feb.1st Talbot is more a question of the team in front of him. When EDM was dialed in, and had their defense playing well together and healthy, the team managed to make the playoffs. That year, combined with his previous seasons seemed to be what Talbot should look like. The next two years something happened, with both team defense taking a huge hit and his individual stats not looking good. He managed to win games in spite of that. And lose a bunch as well.

Fair approximation of the situation with Talbot and Rittich. Smith is a 2 headed monster. Smith the good helps a team with decent defense win games. Smith the bad can singlehandedly lose games, no matter how many goals you score. I don't want to sound too high on the goalie tandem here, but last year's Rittich was one of the best on the league. He hasn't peaked yet, IMHO. A minor injury derailed a good finish to the year. And lost him the net when we needed him the most. Talbot's detractors say he was a 1st shot goal in 13 games last season. Big deal. It's not what you do on the first shot, but in the rest of the game.

Obviously, I wasn't talking about those. Do those even count as shots? Where I was annoyed was the shots on pads that bumped into the slot. Or the flopping on the 1st shot and being out of position for the 2nd or 3rd shot. The easy shots (not easy for me, but come on man) from the top of the circle went in too often. For all the good he played in the playoff games, two game winners were shots from that distance. They were probably glove side in both cases.

Well, I would say that the team relied on the goalies stopping the majority of low danger shots, which Smith was terrible at. Keep the shots to the perimiter, let the goalies stop the lesser ones. What I dd find was that there were a lot of 2nd and 3rd shots off the initial save. Part of that is on the goalie for putting the puck back into the slot on that 1st save. Yes, the tem needs to control the rebounds, but Rittich seemed to have better angles for popping those out. One thing this team did that I was not a fan of was keeping the play gong instead of freezing it. A lot of so-called great goalies do that; make the save and get the whistle. You need to recognize who is on the ice and what is happening. 4th line out against the top line; freeze it and let your best D-zone people worry abut the next faceoff. Fresh players out there, stop the puck and get it to your D to move out on transition.

The top line succeeded because they could connect on passes. Monahan has a good release, as does Lindy. Lucic will only be there if they want to send a message with Gaudreau on the ice. It's not going to be "look I can score" as much as "stay away if you know what's good for you". Other than that, I can forsee spending time in the goalie's grill. Provoke and annoy. Tkachuk does that well enough for one PP unit. What I am hopeful for is Lucic having a chat with some of the less classy players out there. Kassian for one. Gudbranson for another. Okay, I respect Gudbranson a bit more than others.

It is simplistic. But the point is that Lucic doesn't have two of the three skills necessary to play above the 4th line. Shot and apeed. Maybe 'm wrong, but I didn;t see the wicked shot I thought he was capable of. He won't be much of a threat on the first wave of an attack. Trailer or collect the garbage at the net.

So, if you compare him to Neal, you see a similar package of no speed and (last year) no shot. Based on what we saw from Neal, he should not have been 3d line. So, by extension, neither should Lucic. I tend to think we may see Lucic get minutes in role situations. Ones where speed is not as important as size. Screening the goalie in a PP situation. Extra man in a 6 on 5 end of game situation, where we need control of the boards. That may not be a great idea, but I see it as a possibility. Also, limited top line use where Gaudreau is getting man-handled. Throw him there for a few shifts to discourage it.

That's what bothered me the most about Neal. I thought he was enough of a pro to realize that he needed to train hard after a cup run, not just take a vacation and come in lazy. Not expecting Lucic to make a difference, but at least he is saying and doing the right things. That's what you want from a guy needing to turn things around.

Really, I go by what his trend has been every year in the league. He's more likely to add to his 99 point year than drop to 80. With the playoffs, we saw what he was against one team where everyone but a few played poorly. How is that indicative of his playoff performance? He sets up players left and right, yet nobody can score? That's on him? Again, he's played a grand total of three teams in the playoffs. One of them he only faced in his rookie year.

I don't overvalue what a player did in one series one year. Bennett didn't impact the game enough for a win. Does that make my opinion of him being trash? Of course not. I was illustrating how the three players compared in counting stats, which seemed to be in dispuite. Tkachuk was a playoff letdown, but then again Backlund was as well. They spent so myuch time defending (not well) that the offense wasn't there. But Tkachuk drives the play regular season. He has silky hands around the net, which is why he can score on the PP. He is probably the best Flame for deflecting shots and scoring in tight. Bennett drives players. His big hits fuel the team.

I don't disagree. But, I think we don't really have a handle on this team in the playoffs. They did not look the same. Level of competition wasn't the X factor. The X factor was a few of our guys looked like crap in the playoffs. Exploitation won the series. Having Gio play a Norris season and look like crap in the playoffs is not a result of him being a regular season player. Having Backlund play a Selke season and then unable to do anything in the playoffs.... I can't even be certain Smith was any good because he let in a ton of goals.

So far, the odds have not been in your favor. NHL games played is a better indicator of how the player is doing. Age is a factor if the player comes in like Makarov. At equal points in their careers, Gaudreau and Monahan have outperformed Bennett. There's no evidence to suggest Bennett will become a 80 point player or Gaudreau will start tailing off. That's the reality.

^^^^^ Make a joke if you like, but you said that age factored in makes Gaudreau less effective.

Age is meaningless. Games played: Mony - 471 games - 363 points - 20 playoff games - 13 points Gaudreau - 394 games - 387 points - 20 playoff games - 12 points Bennett - 312 games - 116 points - 20 playoff games - 11 points The only difference is minutes played. I get that you believe we can't win in the playoffs with Gaudreau, but the evidence to support that is just opinion. Perhaps Gio is the problem. Perhaps always having a questionable old guy in nets is the problem.

You are missing the point a bit maybe. Suffice to say he did well by Flames standards this playoffs. 5 games is all. Could he be a difference maker deeper or fade out. No proof either way. 1g in 5 games against COL 3g in 9 games against ANA 2g in 6 games against VAN What was that bum Monahan doing in those games? 1g in 5 games against COL 5g in 9 games against ANA 2g in 6 games against VAN And that slacker Gaudreau? 0g in 5 games against COL 2g in 10 games against ANA 2g in 6 games against VAN Depends how you look at things I guess. He's a player you want to take into battle with you. Is he going to make the dfference or do you need skill to shine through. Remans to be seen.

Whether or not a 5 game stretch in the playoffs makes up for a meh regular season is debateable. Pretty hard to judge a player or team on one series. Let me put it another way. Player X has a poor first series, but is on fire for the rest of the playoffs. Player Y has a great first series, but tails off for the rest of the playoffs. Player Z plays consistently good for all 4 rounds. Which is Bennett? Hint - none of them. Which is Gaudreau? Hint - none of them. This is neither Bennett hate nor Bennett love. The lens you are looking through only sees value in one series. He needs to up his game in the regular season, and the team needs to up ther game in the playoffs. And they need to play more than one series to see who can take it to another level.

I can see that working for about 5 minutes a night. Lindholm was really underrated for his speed and finish. More than a few times, it was Lindholm involved in a 2-1 rush, not Monahan. Can't say it won't work, but Looch is slow. As slow or slower than Neal. The only thing he helps JH with is potential retribution; ie. nuclear deterent. I'm fine with that. If he turns back into a 20 goal guy, awesome. About as likely as Neal doing that here.

I think you will see Looch playing 2nd PP minutes. Last year the 2nd PP sucked. They had fewer minutes but failed to do anything with it. If you go 3f 2d, then use: Lucic-Backlund-Mangiapane Hanifin-Ras If you go 4f 1d, then use: Lucic-Backlund-Mangiapane Bennett-Ras Either way you have a big shot from the point, and some skill up front, a big screen, plus possession. This of course assumes we make no further adds to the top 6. Regardless of whether Brodie is on the team, he needs to be OFF the PP.

Skating isn't an area that Lucic is likely to improve anyway, so I'm okay with focus on other things.As I said, I am mostly PO'd at the trade terms than anything else. Frankly, I'm glad to be done the Neal experiment. The NMC will be an issue if it isn't. Other than that, he's an overpaid 4th liner that can help the team. Gaudreau is happy to have him on the team, so there's that. "Obviously we've been looking for a little bit of toughness on our team and Lucic brings that," Gaudreau told Adam Kimelman. "I've heard he's a great teammate and he works hard so I'm looking forward to that. Got to meet Talbot when I was in Calgary. Great person, great goaltender. I remember going into Edmonton a lot of games and not coming out with a goal or a win because he stood on his head. I'm looking forward to both of them." He adds Lucic's toughness could be a major factor in Calgary going all the way in the Stanley Cup playoffs. "You don't really realize how big a presence he is on the ice," Gaudreau said. "When you play against a team like that and you have a player like that who can get into the corners, big body, get in front of the net, he really helps your team. I think that's what we've been looking for in our team. I think he can push us over the edge here."

I thought Neal would put up 20 goals and get some time on the top line, while adding some grit. Answer C, none of the above.

He was one of those Nucks I didn;t like, so signing him was a bitter pill. Way overpaid.

The worse thing about those targets is the price he paid to get them. As if it was do or die. Brouwer overpaid just to get him here. Raymond coming off a PTO and getting that much from BT. The cost to trade for Lazar. The cost to trade for Bolig. The cost to trade for Lucic. EDM should have been happy to get Stone for Lucic and pay 2m of Lucic's salary, but that didn't happen. Nobody else was offering much. Even Lucic (2m retained)+ Puljujarvi should have been enough for Neal. Yet, we got Lindholm in a win. How do you hit on that and miss on Brouwer?