travel_dude

More serious to the debate is that if a concussion, it's at least the 2nd one of his pro career. Given his play style, he will get one more in his career. I worry about a fast/rugged player with a concussion history.

So, the easy change to the system is put in Klapka in Dube's spot. But due to the Pospisil injury (week at least), we are back to 12F. And rewarding Dube by bumping him to the top 6 seems wrong. Ruzicka was used after the injury and it seemed fine. Coleman was on when Zary scored the non-goal. I don't know if it makes sense now to bring in Coronato. It doesn't help if you keep yanking him up and down. He will be at the AHL All Star game on Feb. 4-5th. We play again on Feb. 6th. As far as skill goes, he is the best we have on the farm. Difficult to integrate him with Kadri without more practice. Tough game to get in against EDM.

He started strong, but they let him rot. For the most part, he came in when Rosie went out.

Duehr assigned to Wranglers, so no claim put in. Get the guy back up to speed.

Well, if you can tie the TSN reporting to the timing of his slump, then maybe. I don't buy into that though. He plays the same level every game. He just seems to have no touch with the puck. He has played in every situation and line and has done very little. Maybe my expectations are too high and he is what he is. In my view, not producing for a $2.3M salary. Ruzie and Greer have better points per $.

Good to see another kid getting the chance. But, for him to sit after not playing since last week? I think his size would benefit the 4th line on RW. Dube is getting crushed the way that line tends to play. As much as I prefer skill over size, Dube offers little of either right now. I hate dumping on the player but he is not doing anything for us. He can be a good PK'er, but I have seen lots of goals with him and Mange out there.

Looks like Klapka got the nod; recalled today. Was it Sak that predicted it or MP or Robrob?

I didn't see the move to IR until just a few minutes ago. He was skating and I assumed he was close to a return. What you are saying about Kylingtonb does make sense. Will probably know tomorrow if that's the case. Wranglers are on the road for Friday and Saturday games. Palm Desert then Bakersfield. They probably hit the road Thursday.

I don't know what the issue is. Duehr hasn't been effective. Then again, what has Dube done in 42 games? Last time he had any points was November 24th. Something like 23 games since he last had any points. He's only ahead in scoring over guys that have played 28 games or less (Desimone, Duerh and Oesterle). Overall, I am only mildly impressed with the 4th line. Greer and Ruzicka are decent at forechecking and holding the puck. Dube is decent defensively. That's about it. They tend to struggle when caught out there in the D zone.

I agree that Duehr hasn't looked the same. But, having only 12 F available is a bit risky. Maybe related to Kylington, but why not send down one of the extra D? I'm not sure of the waiver status right now of Oesterle and Disimone, since they were up and down. We have 7 that appear to all be healthy now. Just asking, since I don't get the plan yet. Until he clears (or claimed) i doubt we see another move.

Klapka matches up with Greer and Ruziicka perhaps, but Dube is still there. Maybe just me, but I would prefer to add a skilled player to give you more options. Coronato had a hard time keeping up with Zary and Kadri. Pospisil adds a setup guy where Coronato is more of a shooter. Bringing up Coronato to play 4th line minutes is not the worst thing. The 4th line is good on the forecheck but fails to get quality chances that often. Ruzicka might be better able to setup Coronato than LHS Dube. Just me, I know. You reward the guys that are your best performers. Coronato is an All Star in the AHL. If Pelts was ready I would suggest him.

It was obvious that it would be an emergency loan if Markstrom was injured, but it was not initially posted that way. It showed up that way later in Capfriendly. They tend to get it right 99% of the time, but the initial inclusion doesn't have 100% accurate details right away. I didn't believe it to be a fake injury for a trade, only some twitter people drew that connection.

Took longer than I expected. Really, if he was being held out, wouldn't the great insiders have some scuttlebutt? In a way, it's not a great time to make a change like that. The team was less than a 500 club before the current "run". Now they have been clipping along at closer to 600. Would you not want to first see if this was a minor correction or the real team? Make the change now and you see the negative impact of the trade. Wait and you see if the team regresses anyway? I suppose either makes sense. You don't always wait for losses to pile up and devalue an asset. Losses without Markstrom makes you wonder what the rest of the problems are. Anyway, he left practice yesterday on his own, and it didn't seem connected to any GM talk. Doesn't mean it didn't happen. One has to wonder about his hand after losing his glove at the end of the last game.

Seems like a typical emergency recall situation, but not listed that way. Let the trade banter begin....LOL

Not a line change, but Markstrom out with "minor" injury. Vladar gets the start. 3 critical division games this week, with ARI, TOR and EDM. None are great opportunities for Wolf, but he could have started tonight.

Almost on cue, Markstrom left practice on Monday with an injury. Huska has no timetable for his return. Wolf called up.

EDM is not much different for fickleness. Losing streak, fire everyone and fire the goalies into the sun. Waive a new signed goalie (last year's). Winning streak and the cup is ours. Only a few of the recent streak were against playoff teams. 3 of 10 were OT or SO wins. TO media and assault on West home games is sickening. What do you do the rest of the year if you aren't at a Calgary or EDM game? Nobody cares what player in TO has a hangnail. Nobody cares how bad a coach TO has.

Spolier alert, as if you didn't know, the Wings won. How is the Leafs sending so many players to the All Star game? Because Canada is full of idiots?

There's a big difference between playing through injuries well into a season and your first actual game. He's not about to risk it personally; it's his career. If he starts missing games I may think it's valid.

I dunno. One would think that any hint of soreness in-game and he would be on the bench. I have no doubt his body would be sore after playing for the fist time. Legs, arms, ribs, knees, butt....

I remember twitter blowing up and some of the analysts trashed the trade, but this fan group was more of a threeway tie. Positive Commenters They liked the player coming back and felt we couldn't do a lot better due to the trade market. Some looked at the player stats and felt he would be a good addition. The player age and contract status helped us manage the ongoing cap. Untapped potential. Kind of player that would fit with Huberdeau. Negative Connie taken for a ride. All we got was a 3rd and a lesser player. Expect at least a 2nd to go with the player. A nobody that only scored when given excess minutes. Even Understood the trade returns at the time. Toffoli is over 30 and not likely to repeat for much longer if at all. Would have cost us a lot to extend. Didn't want to stay after we didn't want to pay him long term. Possibly a TDL would have been better. Would have preffered more or better picks. Like the player not the trade details. We lost a lot of posters since the summer, so it's hard to tell if some have changed their opinions. He struggled out of the gate, but then again every player did. His game wasn't fitting in with who he initially played with, so he adapted it a bit and also changed a bit of what he was doing. The one thing that never seemed to change was his ability to hit the net.

I think they might be delaying the availability for the 2nd and 3rd games until they hear from the NHL. There was nothing to suggest he was injured in the game last night. Unofficially, he played between 20 and 23 minutes.

The game was a B2B. There was zero reason to play him after a long layoff. This would be a precautionary sitting, where he would be sore after playing 20+ minutes. Obviously, he will be treated with kid gloves when he comes back. His schedule to return will be often discussed by him, the trainers and the coaches. I don't expect a full return to the crazy NHL schedule right away. Game here, game there, evaluate. Practice. He had to go through steps to be released from the program, so now it should be physical. And remembering the things you did by instinct and by coaching. Even though the AHL is at game speed, he has to treat it like camp. Ramp up the play to a AHL level first, then see where you sit.

Not to be critical, but stats watching is a risky business. There is little context in them. If you looked at the two year sample of Lindholm where he was a 40 goal guy and then he was less than 30, you would wonder if he was any good. When I look at drafted players, I tend to only have stats and scouting reports to go on. Most of the time, I have not seen a player play. Sharky played less minutes on a lesser line. Ruzicka scored when he was in the top 6, but has tailed off. What does that show? Toffoli was okay in VAN and okay in MTL. He was okay in his first season playing on a 3rd line. The only times he exceeded was on the top line with 18+ minutes per night with our top C. The value available during the trade period seemed to suggest that we got a young player with an unknown ceiling for a vet. It seemed to be fair. I don't think anyone was really trashing it, just some felt we didn't get par value. Maybe that comes from overvaluing the player or the price we paid to get Toffoli.

Please grade "1 being the worst" and "5 being the best". New Managements Performance [This would be mostly the Coach and General Manager] GM - 4 This is difficult to rate, since the only two things done are the waiver claim and the Sharky trade. Connie has pushed the agenda to use merit to play here, not salary. Coach - 3 Not sure Huska should get this, but overall the changes made have helped them recover from a horrible start. Somewhat. Overall teams Performance. 2.5 - blech. They are a 500 team that can perform like a 600 team then performs like a 300 team. Offense Performance 3 - Would you be surprised to know that we are 14th in goals for? 3 goals less than EDM with their vaunted PP? Defense Performance 2 - We are -3 in GF/GA differential. It feels so much worse than that. Own goals, turnovers. Goaltending Performance 3 - We win in spite of a lot of goals scored on us. A lead is never safe. Top 3 (Markstrom) in HDS% but letting others in easily. We really only win games that we score 3 or more goals. And a lot of comeback wins. After grading, make your comments and be a bit more specific. Where the area is needing improvement, or the area that was better than you thought it would be. Needs work - breakouts, PP and zone defense. Breakouts - this should be simple but it leads to turnovers. We are not gaining advantage with crisp passes and zone entries. PP - what is there to say. Ras unwilling to shoot and predictable. The PP looks stationary and slow. Weegar seemed to help last night. Zone defense - poor gap control, it seems like we expect someone else to deal with it. What you would change to attain the goal of making the playoffs. Not so much a change to make the playoffs as much a change to improve the team's future. Dealing with the UFA needs to be addressed, not just keep them for a playoff run. It may make sense to keep Tanev if we intend on re-signing him. If we aren't, then he has to be moved. Overall, any trades need to take account of current needs (younger roster player) and the state of the pipeline. That may mean prospects and picks. The changes we can make without trades are looking at the D and 4th line and PP. Oesterle playing was a nod to the dad's trip, which I respect. But it's not a winning strategy. We have similar prospects with some risk, but we are not just here to win based on a believed ranking, we have to evaluate what we have. The 4th line looks okay some nights and bad others. Last night it seemed like three different styles of players. One fast, one skilled and one tricky. Not many plays resulted in anything. Pick a lane and use players that fit that lane. The PP looked better last night, but the default is slow and predictable. It seemed like the reason why it worked was that ARI forced us to move it quickly. Other times we have been burned by this type of defense. Finally: Are we better than last year? or Are we worse off. Hard to say. We are probably close to last year without any winning streaks longer than 3 games. I don't know if we are closer to a playoff position this year than last year at this time. It seems like we are about the same. I'm a little concerned that we seem to only have trust in one goalie. Scoring seems to be similar to last year in projected goals, but some guys really crushing it and some well below last year. Are we pointed in the right direction or Are we sliding off the map of relevance? We are really doing nothing much either way. My concern is that we make reactionary trades to try to just make the playoffs. Nothing I hear suggests that right now, but the pressure can mount to this aim. Lastly has your fandom for the Flames changed this year or from the start of the year? Not really. More frustrated with team performance. Watch every game as usual. Get a little more down on them right now when they look like crap. I stopped trashing individual players.