travel_dude

Giving Wideman 28 minutes was a mistake, but the only reasonable solution without disrupting both top pairs. Playing him 20 minutes allows him to make use of his (limited) speed. Russell did cover his deficiencies, but at the same time, left us with a physical guy smaller than 75% of the forwards he was facing. Pair Wideman with a physical, bigger version of Russell and you are set. Pair Russell with a bigger physical guy and you are set. All three pairs have a balance of power and can be rolled with similar minutes.

He has been pretty consistent in putting up points over his tenure with the Flames, so there is no reason to believe he can't put up similar numbers this year. If it drops off, then you have to ask whether he is worth investing long term. But you also have to wonder what you are going to get to replace his numbers. Are you going to have to pay $6m plus in FA, which seems to be a growing trend. Do you have to add some decent prospects to get a younger version of Hudler? Again, how much will that cost and will they be the right type of player. As a top 6 player, we have none better yet. In a year's time, will we have relagated him to the 3rd line? If so, they he is expendable.

Saying Wideman is slowing down seems strange, since he had a career year. The previous year was bad due to multiple injuries. If he is your offensive D-man, then you pair him up with the guy that gets the defensive work done. Trading him makes us weaker offensively. Russell could up his defensive game if his backup was a defense first player, but his best year was still only 7 goals. Wideman and Gio both have 2-3 really good years ahead of them before we see much tailing off. Likely Gio tails off due to his hard-nosed play.

I would settle for a defensive, punishing D-man. Engelland is only 1/2 that. Having Russell and Wideman on the same pair tells the opposite tale. Two offensive-minded players. If you had a faster Regehr-like player with Wideman or Russell you would be better off. One takes the offense, the other crushes players entering the zone or cycling the puck. Gio/Brodie (Brodano) is a study in that kind of pairing. Gio takes offense, and Brodie covers both sides if Gio pinches. Or vice-versa. Only thing lacking is the punishing hits, but Gio does his fair share. The third pair (Diaz/Engelland/Schlemko/Smid) lacks the shut-down/hard-hitting guy. Smid and Engelland are too slow. Schlemko is too small. Diaz is not a great 1st pass or real offensive threat. Wotherspoon is a bit of both, but too light yet to be a punishing D-man. His skating is good, but his offense is unproven so far. Morrison is an unknown, but is reported to be somewhat mean. Smid was bad with Wideman or Russell. I think moving on from Smid, Engelland, and Diaz is likely a good thing. Petry was a guy I was high on when EDM was looking to move him, but he is likely to get a tidy sum at FA time.

Lumping Engelland in with other big D-men is not really fair. If Russell was bigger than 5'10", he might have had an easier time with the Maroon/Getzlaf/Perry line. He has the heart of a lion, but he can't take out a guy 5 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier 20+ minutes per game. I would take a combo of Brodie's skills, Gio's toughness and Kanzig's size every day. Vancouver's biggest guy is Edler (6'3" 215 pounds, not exactly bruiser size) and is not a fierce player. They were afraid of taking hits. If Big Buff or Ferland or Chara is coming at your D-men, do you want to have a Kanzig size player or a Russell size player?

He made two or three saves when it counted. We won because he made those saves. He was not the go-to guy in the last month, so he is ready, but a little off. I think he gets the rest of the games in this series.

The only way you let Ramo walk is if you have signed a better free agent or are 100% sure of the replacement. I have no issue with Hiller/Ramo until we have a better option. Do you want to let him go to another team and have to play him? I would rather play against Hiller next season. Deeds has pointed out the loophole in the waiver at the start of the season (no reason to doubt him), so you have 3 guys competing for two spots (4 if you include Gillies). Top 2 get the Flames, the others go to Stockton. I actually think we haven't seen the best of Ramo. He has gotten better over the year. He was a late bloomer, if you want.

Hiller will get the start for Game 1. Derek Wills ‏@Fan960Wills 6 mins6 minutes ago Jonas Hiller gets the start in goal for #Flames in Game 1 vs. #Ducks. #CGYvsANA

If you look back on the season, you see how the goalies both play 3-4 games in a row, only to play a bit of a stinker the next game. Yes, the Flames leave them out to dry somewhat, but both goalies are famous for letting in at least 1-2 softies in those games. With Hiller, you have to remember why they went with the other two guys. He wasn't getting it done in the playoffs. He has been good for us this year and the playoffs, but it remains to be seen if he can continue.

The difficult thing with Hiller and Ramo is that they are both good for about 4 games in a row. They are a great regular season tandem, and Hartley has to figure out what the shelf life is for the next series.

The biggest issue with recovery is getting the mobility and strength back. That takes time. When you lose use of your arm for even a week, you have very little muscle mass and your arm forgets how to move. The physio is intense.

I'm not sure it is a wise thing to let walk a guy that provided equal numbers to Hiller in the regular season. Yes, I get that he was injured and we had Ortio come up and play outstanding. Ramo is better than most of the backups in the league, at least from my perspective. If Ortio comes in at TC and blows the doors off, then we have a replacement for Ramo or Hiller.

We could have gone with either Hiller or Ramo in the playoffs, if Ramo had come back a week sooner. Both have been clutch for us. Berra may have seen his game rebound a bit in COL, but I watched some of his games and he stunk it up. Bu-bye. He was a poor choice over Ramo last season, and created the need for Hiller in the off-season.

Wotherspoon and Morrison are in a similar boat after this season. We have some guys that could replace Smid, Engelland and Schlemko, but it remains to be seen how soon. For now, I will give Spoon the benefit of the doubt, depending on how he does in the playoffs.

You have me there. I am actually thinking he may be higher on the pecking order than Wotherspoon, but for a different reason. Spoon is more in the shutdown mode, while Morrison is higher offensive potential.

The top 4 has done a valiant job. On some teams they would be all top 4, while on others, only 2 would be. Do you only want to stay the same at best, considering all 4 have had career years? Or do you continually seek to at minimum stay the same, and more likely improve? We have to decrease the number of shot attempts, shots on goals and goals against.

I get what you are saying, but the bottom line is we don't even have prospects trending towards a top 4 role. Diaz and Schlemko are bottom 2. Wotherspoon could become a top 4, but we don't know (his offense doesn't suggest this, unless you consider a top 4 to be strictly shutdown). Ramage, Kulak, Culkin are possible NHL'ers in the future, but again, likely bottom 2. Kanzig, Rafikov, Gilmour, Mattsson, Roy and Hickey...These guys are a few years from projecting, but apart from Rafikov (QB on PP), I don't know if any will even make the NHL. We need top 4 D-men in the system, ready to step up. We lost Gio for the biggest part of our season, and almost didn't make it. As our senior defence keep aging, they become more likely to be lost for injuries. Two years in a row, Gio was injured. Last year Wideman was out with a wrist issue and came back flat. As much as Diaz and Engelland have taken bigger roles on this team, we can't expect to improve if that is our solution to lack of depth. Making the playoffs is great, but we want to improve every year. We can't just say "we have top 4 now so we are set".

We do know he wanted to take on Cam Ward's salary for their pick. Widely reported. You are right that we can't evaluate what trades he didn't make, but the fact they weren't means he didn't take asking price. That is good to me.

Agreed that Sam was a no-brainer. But what he didn't do was trade up to get Sam (or other) at 2nd or 3rd. He didn't trade up to get Ekblad. The asking price would have killed us. One of the things he tried to do was get another low pick from Carolina by taking on a bad contract. Didn't work out. The GlenX trade didn't hurt us, and at least we have some futures for him. The Sven trade was bad asset management. Trading when the value is lowest. If you need to up the value of a player, don't sit him in the pressbox or on the farm. I like the way he talks and what he says. He is a good choice for a rebuild. He didn't get too hyped on what he has as a team, nor did he bring in rentals for a playoff push. Some of the later deals at TDL seemed low cost, but who knows what they wanted from the Flames.

I get the lack of love for Backlund (injuries, lack of offense). But he is the best possession forward we have. He regularly faces the toughest competition. Unless you have one of the rookies show repeatedly that can do that, losing him would set us back more than you think.

I see Raymond falling out of favour with the coaches and GM. He isn't living up to his previous year or his promise. I can see him being traded as early as October. LW's who have passed him on the depth chart? Bouma, Ferland, Johnny Hockey...Ferland has potential to be more than a Bollig, so he may just replace him. He may also start scoring, and keep a spot in the top 9, after Bouma comes back.

Ramage is nothing special, so far. Kulak was out-performed by Culkin and only made it back to the AHL (from ECHL) when Culkin was lost for the season. Schlemkp is fine. No word on Diaz. Wotherspoon had a good end to last season, so I think he has promise. Playing with Seth Jones in junior, he had an amazing season to end his junior career. Engelland is serviceable. He brings nore toughness than the rest of the D core, so we need him for the playoffs.

Bouma is not in the $3m tier of players. Lpve the player, but he is a 3-4th liner that can play up to the level of a 2nd line on our team. He is a heart and soul player, and deserves a raise. Not that much, though.

Not sure who you were responding to, but I will give you some of my thoughts: Raymond 57gp 12g 11a 23pts -8 1gwg Jooris 60gp 12g 12a 24pts +1 4gwg Backlund 52gp 10g 17a 27pts +4 2gwg Backlund and Jooris played against top lines or in a shutdown role. Raymond was mostly given the high ground. Jooris and Raymond were similar in TOI per game. Jooris is a rookie. Jooris can play effectively on the PP and PK, while Raymond is mostly only PP. Jooris can play center or RW. Raymond can only play effectively on the LW. Jooris plays hard on the puck, while Raymond gives it up fairly easily. Forgetting salary, this was an experiment that didn't work out. No hard feelings, but he takes up a roster spot that a rookie/sophomore could easily replace.

Miller will be a liability for the Nucks. Play him if they want and watch him struggle again this year. Watch the crowd turn on him. Would it make sense to send down the guy you called up to be the backup? Are you thinking Thiessen or Gillies? Gillies, yes I agree. Sign him and play him as a backup or send him to Addy.