travel_dude
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Everything posted by travel_dude
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There are a lot of stats that show how a game went and they aren't advanced. Really, their place is backing up what you see on the ice. But then again, they are subjective. EDM counts hits and shot differently at home. Shots may make it seem like you dominated, but we saw enough of that last year where we didn't. Did we have the puck a lot? Sure, when we weren't backing off on the other team entering the zone. Peters seems like a bit old school. Use the info but watch the game and react when you don't see something you like. Don't be so stuck on a system that you can't make a change. Don't just roll 4 lines because you have 4 lines. Know what your players are good at so you can play them when you need something. And, since this is about goaltending, don't just use the main guy because he wants to play. Use your gut. Make choices that have a long term view.
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If it isn;t obvious, I'll say it. I like Hamonic. I think he got the gears for playing a steady game on an unsteady pair. Could he have been better at decision making or better breakouts? Sure. Did Smith take away some of his time to make better passes? Sure. I think playing with Hanifin will help him. A younger guy with smarts that can skate. Can defend. Let them build some chemistry. He's not going to score a ton, but he does have a heavy shot. Lot's of opportunity for deflections.
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It's funny how some players evoke such criticism. Hamilton had a terrible 1st year, but was paired eventually with Gio. Many hated his defensive game, while other praised it. The trade was panned by some because we missed out on Barzal. Bennett has one good season mostly playing with Backlund and/or Frolic. Other years has played with less skill; Granlund, Janko, Hathaway, Brouwer, Lazar. Some give him slack, while other are almost writing him off. 2 coaches are blamed for his usage. Hamonic has an had season in NY, plays 49 games. Comes to CGY and is paired with Brodie, who is playing on a side he doesn't prefer. Hamonic has a bad season, but the pair was a disaster. The trade was panned by some because we gave up a lotto pick and other picks. Some think he is garbage, while other are "wait and see".
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I think we'll be doing that soon enough. Could do that with Lazar and Hathaway for starters. Add Graovac, Pelosi and Prout. I think that would leave Czarnik Janko and Dube or Mangiapane. Rychel 13th F. 3 goalies and worst one gets waived. Did I account for a full roster? Or we could just make a trade for him out of the AHL. EDIT - Oops I forgot Quine.
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I'm guessing that we are not playing the China team then. Supposed to be a complete day off for them, IIRC.
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And..... Back to goaltending. I wonder if they give Glass a start? Yes, he's only here as a PTO, but we have to be open minded and look at possible solutions. MacDonald hasn't shown he was worth goving a contract to. May never amount to even an AHL goalie. Other considerations. Oscar Dansk. Buried in VGK's system. Made a handfull of NHL starts and was pretty good in the AHL. Signed to a 2-year deal with VGK. Trade consideration?
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TBH, you started by saying that Hamonic needs to go. Really, there are some good observations by people based on a couple of pre-season games and rookie games. As well, there are general comments based on last season results and observations so far. Goaltending is still a question mark, until it isn't. The starter is an often injured older goalie signed for this season only. After that we have two guys fighting for the backup spot and 3 other prospects fighting for AHL jobs. We could have a SCF team this year with the goalies achieving desired results. But we don't know. The expectation is that the starter will remain healthy for 55 games and the backup will be good enough for the rest. It's not a dire situation to be in, but it's not ideal considering that everywhere else we have NHL depth in spades.
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Brossoit is a strange cat. He plays lights out against certain styles. He can play half his games at 2 GA or less, then get lit up. Personally, I think he's good for about 10-15 games in a season without stinking it up. Maybe playing behind an AHL defense in EDM last year killed his game. They sure love to bury goalies there. Anyway, good luck with him. He's probably a few years from being a steady backup, since he has to unlearn everything EDM subjected him to.
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Lehtonen may be a good goalie, but I have only seen him play that way against the Flames. Once in awhile. His NHL numbers in recent years haven't been stellar. You may not be concerned with where Rittich or Gillies end up, but you are paying them $750k and $250k if they play outside the NHL.
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If you are making that type of call, there are a few other options. Mason. Sparks. Pickard. Any of those options presents an issue for goalie spots. 2 AHL and 2 ECHL. You can possibly loan a goalie to another AHL or ECHL team, but you have to keep the top goalies playing enough games. Assume that you add one of the above (or Letting-it-in), then you need to send down Rittich. Once you do that you need to decide who plays where. Gillies-Parson, Rittich-Parsons, whatever.
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That's not really a fair assessment of people's views on this forum. Some do a lot of research into the subject. Some look at different stats, comparables, previous season work, etc. Some just react to what others post if they don't agree. I'm not saying anything different now than I was in July, in that we have suspect depth in nets. Once we have a complete team in camp, perhaps we will have a better idea of where Rittich and Gillies are this year.
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It's a bit early to say that Rittich isn't ready for the backup role as much as it is to say that Gillies didn't do as bad. What it does do is re-enforce the notion that we don't know what we have in NHL depth. I'm not too concerned about one bad game or Parsons looking good against rookies. Doesn't prove anything. What does concern me is that we have this question mark in nets. We all believe that Rittich will be the NHL backup and Gillies and Parsons will split starts in Stockton. That can only happen if Rittich looks ready. Plenty of pre-season games ahead of us, but we can't go with a 3 or 4 headed monster and giving each goalie a few pe-season starts. If Rittich is rusty, then he needs to split games with Smith. The team in front has to build confidence in him and he has to give them confidence. We have a new coach and some new systems, so we need the practice and game situations to get ready as a team. I really don't care about MacDonald or Schneider at this point. They have to do something in KC to push their way into conversation. Because of that, I don't want to see them play any pre-season games. I would prefer to see Glass get a start, since he is closer to being a NHL goalie.
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The Official Calgary Flames "New Arena" thread
travel_dude replied to DirtyDeeds's topic in Flames Talk
That would be a major embarrassment. The biggest draw for the Olympics is ice hockey. Well not really but sellouts of 18000 for every event. Equivalent for summer would be 100m finals. Sure it's still Alberta but why bother. -
The Official Calgary Flames "New Arena" thread
travel_dude replied to DirtyDeeds's topic in Flames Talk
Maybe Neshi can put in a bid for Kraft Hockeyville to see if he can get a donation for a hockey arena. Seems like he will only do it now as part of a Olympic bid. -
Stockton Heat Updates [2016-2017]
travel_dude replied to travel_dude's topic in Calgary Wranglers and Flames Prospects
Ehliz was playing on the "4th" line, so his linemates were not that good. I'm going to say he needs to get his feet under him in the AHL. Pollock has be a nice surprise. Two goals in the last two games scored on one-timers. When was the last Flame to do that? AOM was the best defender out there on our side, I thought. Svedberg is probably going to be signed to an AHL deal. Merezhko - does he take up an overager and import spot on the Lethbridge Canes? If so, he likely gets a deal. -
The Official Calgary Flames "New Arena" thread
travel_dude replied to DirtyDeeds's topic in Flames Talk
I try not to. As it is the FN blogs get inundated with troll posers. Have flames based avatars or names but they are trolls. If you read #flames twitter you see a guy named Cloutier that used to write for Eklund. He was such a Homer you would think that the Oilers were playoff contenders in the decade of darkness. He got the boot and opened his own blogs. He trashes everything flames. -
Well then don;t make up stuff about his handling the puck making him the MVP of the team in the first half. He was for the simple reason that he was playing elite. You want the stop the puck when it's fired along the boards? Fine. Do it and leave it to the guys that can start the transition.
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Every close call is an opportunity to transition to offence lost. It may not result in a goal against right away, but it may end up in an icing or extra zone time that hurts the team later. Did you enjoy watch him ring it high off the glass to nobody? Have possession for about 3 seconds, then give it up again. But you don;t see a problem, so no point in arguing it.
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I expect him to be a team player. Communication between the goalie and D-men is key to that. His competetiveness is what makes him a winner, not trying to singlehandedly control the zone exits. Do I expect him to ignore what the coach says to him? No. Will he adapt his game to a new coach and new D-men? Well, he pretty much has to.
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I would say that it's important for the team to adjust Smith to some strategy other than letting the goalie constantly clear the puck. BP seems to be the guy to instill that in him. Gully would never question him and Sigalet is pretty much useless. There's no way you can break out with a good first pass if the goalie is disrupting that and putting the D in a difficult position. Sure they could adjust to it, but it leads to confusion. You can't expect the D to back off the puck and then turn around and dump it. I was fine with him stopping the puck on dump ins, but just stop it, don't habg onto it. My feeling with Rittich was that he was fine while he let the D deal with the puck and just focus on stopping it. When he changed his game to playing it more, things started to fall off the rails. May not be the only reason, but it took away from his game.
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We had quite a few games >3 goals for. The problem was all those 2 or less goals for games in between. Being shut out. Losing in OT. At the end of the day, the goalie has to stop the important shots to hold a lead or keep it close enough for the team to score the tying/go ahead goals. We were so rarely there last year, unless we scored 4 goals. A two or one goal lead evaporated. A one goal defecit became two or three. I can't explain the defeated attitude when down by a goal. I did notice that we shut down offence when up by one or two. Or played for the tie. It used to be the bread and butter. Only a few games saw that killer instinct. Score as many goals as you can. Getting back to goaltending, we can't rely on an aging goalie, expecting him to play 60 games before playoffs even start. And we can't expect a rookie backup to take on 20+ games unless they show they can handle it. Camp and pre-season isn't going to flesh that out. They need to have some options if either of those guys looks like crap.
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Had he been playing at a 50 game per season rate, he may not have been injured. That was the problem in October (when Lack got no net) and later, even after Rittich had shown he could handle it. His worse game up to the end of December was an OT loss where he gave up a total of 3 goals.
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The Official Calgary Flames "New Arena" thread
travel_dude replied to DirtyDeeds's topic in Flames Talk
I'm just saying that he sounds like a troll trashing the team. I've heard it so much before. The clue is to always bring in EDM to the discussion. They live in the past so much that it comes into every discussion about their team vs CGY. -
The Official Calgary Flames "New Arena" thread
travel_dude replied to DirtyDeeds's topic in Flames Talk
Sounds like a troll from EDM. Nenshi is the savior of all things Calgary. -
Calgary Flames Drafting and Development: Your Analysis
travel_dude replied to rickross's topic in Flames Talk
You would have to think BT knows guys like that, and would talk to him.
