Flyerfan52

I guess you know about Lucic only getting a $10,000.00 fine for targetting Mathieu Joseph, slashing him, nailing him when he didn't have the puck & then punching him in the head when he was lying on the ice. The rookie is 6'1:" & 173 pounds. Yeah, Lucic is a real tough guy. The part that bugs me more is young Lemieux got a 2 game suspension for his 1 offense. Lucic is a repeat offender but gets a slap on the wrist of about 10 minutes pay @ his salary.

Quennelle has a contract that pays him $6 million a year until after the 2019-20 season. He can well afford to wait before he picks his next head coaching gig. Being used to winning on a team with good management the odds of him going to a team with constant drama are only slightly lower than him opting for Ottawa.

Like the skaters of this generation the young goalies are different from the old guard. i see it over & over @ all positions where players that are driven to be the best shake off the coddling of their developement years (I think it was Tim Hunter who said these days coachs need to be as much babysitter as coach) & start working with outside experts. For skaters is guys like Adam Oates & Gary Roberts while the goaltending fraterity has their own version. The skills on these modern kids are there as they have passed on normal childhoods to live for only hockey since they were 5. What is missing is the expertise to fine tune those skills. Many of these outside experts are truely the "gurus" as with so many you see a huge turnaround when players commit to them. Even during the season they are available if their client feels the need to talk to them. It's too late for them to help the old guard like Smith but for young players @ any position working with them is walking the talk.

I doubt you.ve watched him a lot. I have every game since he made the NHL until he was traded (180 regular season & 13 in the playoffs. He just keeps getting better too. I was actually showing greed by asking for a 2nd on top of Armia. Bergervin is 1 of the few GMs I could think of to overpay like my ask involves.

I'd try offering Bennett to center hungry Montreal for Armia & 1 of their 2 picks (the other came from the BJs). Bergervin would likely jump @ the chance to trade for a player that was actually drafted as a center. Playing in Montreal we don't have to worry SB breaks out & comes back to haunt the Flames. Contracts are close (Armia is 0.1 less) & both RFA after the season. Armia had 29 points in 79 vs Sam's 26 in 82 lasr season. Also better defensively IMO. We have a lot of players that play RW but most also play other positions. A line of Tkachuk/Backlund/Armia would be capable in both a shutdown & scoring role. Also, whichever 2nd rounder we get as icing on the cake replaces the 1 we traded as part of the Hamonic deal. Another bullet in the gun for trade purposes or to refill the pipeline.

He said those were teams that had inquired about him over the years. Kicking the tires in the past does not = a trade rumor. So MTL inquired twice? You list them twice.

I saw Elliott is taking about the new chest protector having little padding on the arms. Every shot seems to leave a bruise & feels like no padding in the arm area. If you don't get the shot in the chest, stop it with the blocker or catch it you hurt a lot.

Except in the playoffs when you concentrate on 1 player the other 2 on the line can & will hurt you. Edmonton has McDavid (& without him his wingers become rather average) & Draisaitl (who's wingers are not exactly world beaters on their own. Shutting down McDavid as the main goal when Draisaitl was on his wing allowed the German to feast but since the Oilers think they have 2 world class centers that can each drive a line they are split up. If you totally shut down McDavid he can't even set up the others on his line making them useless.

If you watch Lowry (I do a lot. He's 1 of my favorite Jets) you'd be dang happy with that. The guy is great @ shutdown, can (& does) stand up for teamates, takes regular shifts & other teams can't ignore he's involved in the offence. Only place Bennett is better is in points while Lowry prevents goals by other teams big gunners. A saved goal = a scored goal IMO as it's 1 you don't have to get back.

Exactly. You can't rejig the team to try to salvage 1 player no matter how much some fans love him. I had high hopes when he was drafted but now would be extatic if we could mold him into an Adam Lowry type. Great @ shutdown but still capable of chipping in 20+ points.

It better not. 10-20 bad/inconsistant games even early in the season can leave teams on the outside come playoff time.

True, Personally I prefer the Flames take Pickard as a 35 year old McElhinney backing up 36 year old Smith doesn't make me feel really secure.

It'll be interesting to see if the downsizing of the chest protectors makes a difference in any goalie's game. The change happens starting with today's games.

The bolded is true. In the Jets exhibition win over the Wild last night Brossoit looked a more than capable backup while I was expecting him to be the tire fire he was with the Oilers. It could be that adopting Helle's off season regimen & working with his guru turned things around. He probably never put as much into an off season before but seeing what it did for his pal Helle & wanting to salvage his career would be good incentives. Sure 1/2 the team he was facing was more Ohio than Minny but the D in front of him was 50% AHL Moose or juniors. (on that it was cool to see Big Buff paired with the even bigger Stanley. @ 6'5" & 6'7" when they were side by side on the blueline it looked like they could touch sticks. ) You see the same thing on players that want to be the best. I've mentioned Scheifele & Wheeler before but Laine & Dano both came to camp 14 pounds lighter & both looked better & faster for it. Both credit asking Scheifele questions & trying to follow suit to some degree. On the Flames Gio is said to be a workout freak in the vein of Brindamour. If only this rubbed off on the other players. These days hockey is a year round job as the 1s driven to be #1 take a week off @ most. It's a far cry from the days of Phil Espisito where summer was for partying & you played yourself into shape in training camp. If you want the bigger cheques you work 365 days a year. You can relax when your career ends with a fat bank account.

The Flames scored @ a 2.66 rate so no. If the goalie allows more desperation to score arises.That leads to mistakes/turnovers that turn into even more GA. When your GF/GA is -30 that is not a good thing. Kipper loved the workload but I always felt if we'd played the backup a bit more the team wouldn't have been gripping their sticks as tight in fear of making a defensive mistake & played more like they did when they trusted Kipper to bail them out.

Tim Berhardt has left his position as Director of Amateur Scouting with the Coyotes. Go get him BT! He wants to slow down a bit from that life on the road but even if he just does the WHL as a part-timer ge's a good 1.

Why keep altering things to keep trying to salvage something from Bennett? If the team is better using players in different combos do it. I was as pleased to get him in the draft as anyone but he's on his 2nd contract & entering his 4th full season (I won't count burning 1 contract year for 1 game & playoffs) but hasn't done anything to merit going all out to improve him especially if it costs overall. Unless he suddenly breaks out on his own we might as well admit he hasn't lived up to being what we thought we'd drafted. Without putting much thought into it there are easily 6 players taken after him I'd sooner have. I'd give it to the TDL (or less) & then probably try to get something for him in trade. It could be the Flames were too gung-ho expecting immediate impact but IMO he would have been better served with more time to mature in junior. There wasn't the Monahan reason of nothing gained by playing on a poor team as Kingston was a good team. But that's hindsight so regardless of where blame lies whats done is done & we have a lesser player than expected.From expected top 6 to hoped for bottom 6 depth is 1 heck of a drop.Save the TLC for players that still have a higher ceiling within reach.

They have the Jets ranked 28 for probably the same reason even the Wpg. has AHL Rookie of the Year Niku. I take these rankings as a few peoples opinion based largely on stats as I'm sure they only watch small doses or high light clips of those hundreds or thousands of AHLers & prospects playing around the world in many leagues.

I'd love to have the Rinne/Saros situation Nashville is fortunate to have happening. No such luck. but few teams can claim to have something like that. In fact, none come to mind. There look to be 2 options that both will have support. 1 is a 30ish but proven big $ goalie like Bob, Schneider or Price that will cost us big in players/prospects/picks & mess with our cap severely. The other is a stopgap like we've used in the past. We could try to snag 26 year old Pickard from the TML & hope he's just a late bloomer or go with a former starter who is now a UFA @ no cost. I'd offer Mason a PTO & hope last years streak of injuries were just bad luck. If he outplays the AHLers in camp offer a $1 x 1 contract to stay in the league & if healed earn a job for next year. @ 30 he might still have the good years the Jets were hoping for left. To me it felt like last year was just that ultimate storm where he couldn't stay healthy but when he finally could Helle was cemented as starter. If you just look @ his #s in the limited games he played they are horrible due to a rotten start. They were much better in the few games he got into later. (His trade to the Habs was the #s game due to cap. Like BT over his tenure Chevy took a chance assuming Helle wasn't ready yet but in this case he got lucky.) Little cost but could be high reward since if he can refind his game he could buy a few more years for BT to find the "goalie of the future" by replacing Smith for a few years.