travel_dude

Ignoring the previous decade of goalie mishandling, how has Gillies or Rittich shown that they are ready right now. A good game by each of them early in this season. Great. How does that help us this year? Neither is ready to be a starter. Neither has had a consistent enough effort to be ready to sit on the bench for 4/5 games. We only saw NHL games from them in meaningless games last year. I would rather that one of them have a consistent 1/2 season and take the job from Lack. I don't think the Oilers are feeling very good about their tandem this year. Talbot has looked shaky. Brossoit had 1/2 a game against the Nucks where they had already won the game. Stopped 6/8 shots against the SENS. Maybe he is their future, but they gave up a lot for Talbot; the guy that brought them to the 2nd round. Do we bother to come in here and critique every game that Smith plays? No. Those are in the GDT. He stunk against the SENS. He was bad against Connor McDavid, letting in a breakaway and a tap in on a second opportunity. Many of us spent a lot of thread space criticizing the Smith trade. It's at least fair to give him some props for facing 40 shots a night. Will he win us the cup this year? Anybody's guess. The problems this team has won't be solved this year in nets.

Maybe she can call from the Lg and Trudeau will see the 780 area code and think it's McDavid calling. He would answer then.

Ya know, it's all well and good to have faith in the "kids", but we aren't there yet. Elliott stunk out the joint last year in the early going. He was a better goalie than he showed us fans. He got better as the season went on. This year we had a strong start by a goalie. He's not Price or whatever, he is a legit starter that will give us no more than one or two years of this. Defense needs to learn how to play in front and limit shots. Forwards need to learn how to play without the puck. Lack is the odd man here. I think he's an insurance policy only. He may only get one or two games in the early season, unless he shows like an all star. Either way, he's holding the backup spot until Rittich or Gillies really shows strongly. Looking at goalie's performances to date, some of the options we looked at aren't looking too good. Small sample, but Talbot is getting killed by the other teams and the media/fans. Sound familiar. Whatever you think about our goalie situation, please don't start talking about lotto odds or the next one. Teams are going to show their true colors as the season goes on. COL is not a playoff team. VGK is not gong to make the playoffs. TOR is not going to win the cup....

Rittich had a 36 shot shutout tonight. Not a kid, but has shown a lot in the last year as a "prospect". Smith has done what Elliott didn;t do for half a season (or at all) and that is to be able to stop a breakaway. Has kept the Flames in games where the penalties were getting way out of hand. I admit I was not impressed with the trade, but frankly it was almost the same cost as bringing back Elliott. And the effect has been very impressive. A goalie that can actually handle the puck. Let Smith fire the bombs to the forwards and keep the breakout passes from the defense shorter.

I agree. Sometimes. When it's used no matter what the circumstances, then it's not good.

I'm not sure how this fits the current discussion other than it's about a few vets. The annoying passes from the blueline to the opposite blue line continues, notably by Gio and Bart. GG talks about a possession game *as does BT), but we see this very often. I don't mind the odd stretch pass for a streaking player or a lob over the D for a player at full speed, but these passes into traffic have to stop. Brodie skates the puck a lot. Hammy joins the rush. Hamonic makes passes to exit. The system still resembles what BH had going here. I don't know if some vets use it as a fall back, but it should be coached out of the players. I can give Gio a pass for being old, but he is supposed to set the example. Bart just shouldn't be on the ice.

We don't have the speed of some teams. Stajan, Brouwer, Glass, Stone, Gio, and Monahan are probably the slowest. Only a few of them have enough skill to make up for their lack of speed. Janko is faster than Stajan. Foo is faster than Brouwer. Kylington is faster than Gio. Poitier is faster than Glass. I would rather watch a 4th line of Janko, Poirier and Lazar than what we currently have. I wonder how many games of meh effort from the vets before they will get sat out. 10? 15? 20?

Who? Oh, you mean the one left exposed by the Oilers. I'm not a fan personally. Jut because we were unable to score on him last year doesn't make him a NHL goalie. Backup maybe. I doubt he even gets 15 games this year,

If you look at the success of the Pens, they had a 1st round pick that turned into a starter. Then they drafted a guy in the 3rd that spent 4 years in junior and almost two full seasons in the AHL. In his draft year he was no better than Mason MacDonald. The extra time turned him into what he is now. If you apply the same thing to the Flames, you have Gillies in the 2nd AHL season with the chance to come in like Murray did. But he is gong to have to up his game. Smith and Lack are stopgaps. Nobody is disputing that. Gillies or Parsons are the guys they are waiting for. That's not going to happen overnight. Smith could be good enough to bring us to the finals this year. It's a gamble, but so is trading for Raanta or Darling. Ether of those guys could be in the recycle bin by the end of the year. Saros or Grubauer were never available. Those are the only two that I would say are hidden gems. Mason is about on par with Smth.

And for the time being, Hathaway. I would prefer the Little Ball of Hate over Hamilton. Just me, I guess.

And that's what I don't consider to be a great thing. A vet doesn't lose his spot for a bad camp. A rookie doesn't win a job for a good camp. A PTO has a good camp against rookies and tryouts and does good? Sign him up? It easy to impress for a short stint. That is why some players look good in camp. Limited results. As a result, we get stuck with him, while we have a Lomberg with as much moxy and dying to play for us. Or Poirier who would do as much damage as Glass and maybe actually score a goal. You tell him you just want the grit and he can do that. Any AHL player would kill for that.

And every shift that Glass is on the ice is a potential charging penalty or interference or slashing. What are you going to do, have him play alternating shift on the top line so that nobody will take a run at Johnny? Or have him go out after the fact and take an instigator penalty and cost us? I would rather that someone tell Brouwer that his role is to take exception to every hit against the Flames and pound the crap out of anyone that crosses the line. That or he sits. He was supposed to offer grit.

The biggest benefit is no Brouwer being stuck on Bennett's line.

We get lots of newbees here and all are welcome. When the extent of someone's contribution to the board is dropping in long enough to make a single statement with no backup, then perhaps they are here to discuss anything.

The port of NY is great if you are shipping by boat. Just kidding. I mentioned Canada since there is already a lot of customs traffic. I think Toronto would actually be the better hub in Canada, but there aren't bidding? TBH, I don't know the logistics for why they would even consider Alberta, other than rail from BC or a fairly high traffic airport. I've been to NY and Jersey, and while Newark is close to 3 airports, doesn't make it a shoe in for the plant. The feds don't care if it's in AB; considering we provide the transfer payments to the lesser provinces, any province doing alright benefits the country. BTW, I was responding to the juvenile post.

Button is doing what he was supposed to do the last few years. You can see a few GM or POHO picks mingled in where they really fought for a guy. I find that the goalie coach here has never been hit or miss, he has always been miss. I don't blame him for Hiller's regression. I do have an issue with his results with Ortio and Ramo. He worked extensively with them. Both had tools, but turned into fish.

Thanks for joining the Flames discussion board. If you have some insight into why you think Jersey is a viable option for a shipping giant, that would be nice. What is the strategy for Amazon needing a 2nd site? Does it make sense to locate in the US when a lot of shipping is to Canada? How available are hi-tech resources in the state? Is there availability to build near a hub airport? Feel free to post some meaningful insight here.

If Gillies had played more than 7 games in 2015/16, we may not be discussing Lack. Had Gillies had a better season last year, we may not be discussing Lack. Rittich actually played well enough last season, but still only 31 games in the AHL. I don't think you can realistically pass him the backup job this year in Calgary right out of camp. I get your frustration about signing meh players to fill an essential role. Ortio and Irving never managed to shine in the AHL (most recent season he played), nor be able to play in the NHL beyond one stretch of good games followed by bad games. MacDonald looks like a bad pick. We traded Brossoit. When Gillies gets to the Murray level of consistency, he will get the job and Lack (or Smith) will be sent along their way.

Well, I was sorta saying that a backup has to be used to not playing and be able to come in for a game. Rittich and Gillies need to get playing now, which doesn't fit well with the situation in CGY. Lack is only a lock because of this. I don't think you can lose a backup spot in pre-season unless you don't do anything right.

I'm not sold on Lack. He hasn't been the same since he was in VAN. Gillies had one game against LA when they were done. He was great. But that was just one game. I'm not going to sold on Lack until I see him play a regular game. If he's 0-2 to start his season, and it's legitimately on him, I don't know that they will give him any rope. But they also have to get a better read on Gillies and Rittich in the AHL this season. They need to get some mileage before they get called up.

I think the city valued the land at $80m.

Just talking here, but the Next proposal eliminates McManon stadium, provides a new arena and a fieldhouse. $890m. Victoria Park is $555m for a stadium only. Or did I miss something. Everything else is noise. Maybe I'm uninformed, but if the cleanup isn't done (it should be) the land really isn't usable for anything valuable.

Yes, it's all part of the overall costs. How much of the $1.8B is the cleanup? How much is infrastructure? The Victoria Park estimates have no mention of the cost of the Green Line extension and utility upgrades. So they axed a vague estimate that other gov't funding may account for a lot of the cleanup costs and put forward a Victoria Park estimate with TDB $$ for utility and extension. I'm not saying Next was a great deal for the city. But the unknowns for Victoria Park make it hard to say whether the costs will equivalent.

Well, the city is disputing the cost of cleanup and saying that it is un-doable. Not the same thing. They have tainted the Next proposal by inflating the cost to make their argument, as did the Flames in underselling it. So, who pays for the cleanup? You want to use the land for someting other than Next, but you don't even want to clean it up for Next.

If you include the cost of the cleanup, then it's two sides disputing the costs. City says x amount. CSEC says y amount. Either way it's something that needs to be dealt with unless you want to have unused land in the downtown and hope it never impacts life. Maybe the Olympic bid can talk about the "Creosote Museum" as an attraction for visitors to come and see.