5 Things to Be Contenders

[kehatch]

52 minutes ago, AlbertaBoy12 said:

As others have pointed out the pens werent great 5 on 5 with save percentage so while I agree matt murray is good I dont know if I would go top 5 with him. In terms of jones and gibson are they top 5? I dont know about that, gibson can be inconsistent but I would rate him in the top 10, but I think he benefits from the team playing in front of him. Martin Jones in a tricky one he went from having a very good season to a below average one, and im not sure if he is benefiting from the team in front of him or not. 

 

I think its very hard to judge whos benefiting from the team in front of them or whos a very good goalie unless you have a really good eye for tenders. The good thing is as kehatch pointed out smith was 15th in even strength save percentage behind arizona, our team is shaping up to be way better then arizona so he should only look better if he can stay healthy. 

 

Exactly.  Over half of those guys were considered terrible not that long ago.  I also think if you had 10 people list the top 5 goalies in the NHL your going to get 10 very different lists. It shows you how difficult it is to predict goalies.  For all we know Lack is going to pull a Dubnyk this season and be on some persons top 5 'you need a guy like this to win a cup' next year.  

 

I get we would like to have brought on more certainty in net.  But that happens very rarely with goalies.  Most of the time its someone you didn't expect that wows you.  

[420since1974]

I don't pretend to have any skill when it comes to predicting goalies.

That said, I am more comfortable with Smith over Elliott, but preferred Johnson over Lack.

I am one of those that believe that our improvements on D will aid Smith in posting at least league average stats.

His puck handling should also improve our D- zone break-outs.

I think that will be enough to carry the Flames into the play-offs, and perhaps win a round or two.

[rickross]

1 hour ago, 420since1974 said:

I don't pretend to have any skill when it comes to predicting goalies.

That said, I am more comfortable with Smith over Elliott, but preferred Johnson over Lack.

I am one of those that believe that our improvements on D will aid Smith in posting at least league average stats.

His puck handling should also improve our D- zone break-outs.

I think that will be enough to carry the Flames into the play-offs, and perhaps win a round or two.

I agree, I do feel Smith is an upgrade over Elliot albeit a slight one. I do think Smith has it in him to win us some games,  he was always a factor when we played the Coyotes and I'd expect him to have extra motivation knowing he's now on a contending team. 

 

Is it still a successful campaign even if they fail to make it past the 2nd round? How does that affect the win now mandate? It'd be hard to classify us as contenders if were merely achieving the same results from from the last 4 years especially when we have a better all around team with an elite D corps now. Flames will need to win the cup or make the conference/cup finals before we can justify our new additions as improvements. This team will need to find ways to win in Anaheim and get passed the Ducks if they want to truly compete. 

[jjgallow]

15 hours ago, Flyerfan52 said:

In other words not attainable without defeating the purpose.

As of last season I see Price, King Heinrich, Holtby, Rinni & Bobrovsky as the top 5 but to land any of them the cost would outweigh the benifit.

I saw signing Mason as UFA & trading for Grubauer to tandem as a cost effective solution but that bird has flown.

 

I would have supported that.    Or similar.

[jjgallow]

14 hours ago, kehatch said:

 

Exactly.  Over half of those guys were considered terrible not that long ago. 

 

But none of them were really good, and then declined with age, and then became great.   

 

Quote

 Most of the time its someone you didn't expect that wows you.  

 

Yet none of the time was it someone who used to wow you, and doesn't anymore.   But that seems to be our strategy.

[kehatch]

14 minutes ago, jjgallow said:

 

But none of them were really good, and then declined with age, and then became great.   

 

 

Yet none of the time was it someone who used to wow you, and doesn't anymore.   But that seems to be our strategy.

 

None of this describes Smith or what anyone is saying could happen with Smith. He has maintained steady numbers on a really bad team and needs to maintain slightly better numbers on a much better team. 

 

In fact, his numbers were better the Fleury, Bishop, Elliott, Mason, or most of the other options. On the third worst team in the NHL. 

[jjgallow]

14 hours ago, kehatch said:

 

You don't see Hamonic + Stone as an upgrade over Wideman + Engelland? Tough crowd.  

 

I'll lose the D arguement either way, but it's a bit more complicated than that.   There's other factors, like the aging of our best D (Giordano), the fact that we were incredibly, unusually healthy last year, and the fact that...yeah....if you look at their overall careers, Wideman >>> Hamonic.  So no, it's inherently not an upgrade.   It's maintenance, as Wideman ages (and his poor defence becomes more apparent as he can't maintain the same mobility or possession).  All we're doing is softening the blow of aging D.

 

14 hours ago, kehatch said:

 

As for the rest, Smith was better statistically then Elliott/Johnson on a much worse team.  He was also more consistent.

 

Just like I'd lose the D arguement, I think you'd lose this one by popular opinion if it came down to it imho.    Smith has been on better teams and his save percentage was actually worse on them.   They both have a .913 career NHL save percentage.   But Elliot's 3 years younger.     Smith hasn't had a great season since 2011-2012.   So in terms of consistency, you have a point, but that's just because of how incredibly average he's been since then.    Elliot's last great season was 2015-2016.     

 

14 hours ago, kehatch said:

 Also, you don't have to go back very far to find average playoff goal-tending winning the cup.  5 on 5 Pittsburgh and Chicago were both very average.

 

7 years ago?  That is officially a long time ago  IMHO.   And then mostly elite goalie wins before that.

 

14 hours ago, kehatch said:

Overall, Murray was fantastic this season in the playoffs.  But a season ago his stats were identical to Elliott.  Which weren't anywhere near as good as Smith's were the last time he was in the playoffs (who has a 0.945% save percentage in the playoffs).

 

You're mixing in regular seasons with playoffs to make your point.   Murray's first playoff season was also exceptional, was top 10 Stats-wise, but even better when considering what he stepped into, Pittsburgh's defensive woes, the teams he faced, and his rate of improvement as they advanced.    Also, you're advancing my point that letting Elliot go is a downgrade at best, and a cop-out excuse for our playoff performance at worst.

 

His second playoff season was indisputable.

 

And Smith?   Yeah he had a great season 5 years ago.  He was 30, in his prime.  He hasn't had a good season since, which is one of the reasons why he hasn't been in the playoffs since.   The failure to make the playoffs and failure to have an impressive save percentage for 5 years in a row is the "consistency" you refer to.   And now he's 35, and he'll be 36 come playoff time.    And he's our guy.  That's the definition of a Hail Mary.

 

14 hours ago, kehatch said:

I am not trying to make a case that Smith is great.  I am certainly not making a case that he is better then Murray.  But you are off base in your theory that you need an elite goalie to win a cup.

 

Yet you have to go back 7 years to find a single arguement against it.   A Single arguement.   Doesn't make for great odds.  And those weren't 36 year old goalies back then either.

 

14 hours ago, kehatch said:

 In fact, for the vast majority of goalies they look great on great teams and poor on poor teams.

 

1.   Yet, we were fine with blaming Elliot for all our problems in the playoffs after praising his regular season performance that got us there.  Hmm.

2.   You have a good point, but I would say it like this:

 

    The vast majority of NHL goalies (who are in fact average NHL goalies) look above average on great teams, and below average on poor teams.    A great goalie will have a great save percentage, typically, on any team due to the higher number of shots received on poor teams, and their ability to address more difficult scoring chances.   But results-wise (GAA and wins), a great goalie will look incredible on a great team and just above average on a poor team.

 

14 hours ago, kehatch said:

 As we saw when Tim Thomas won Boston a Cup, Halak almost took Montreal to the cup (over Carey Price), Elliott was lights out in the playoffs for St Louis, Dubnyk transformed in Minnesota, etc, etc.   

 

Most of the examples you're providing were truly great goalie performances.  And yes, there's great goalie performances on poor teams as well.   It's just Mike Smith hasn't been one of those in 5 years.    A recent example of what a great goalie on a poor team can do, would be Robin Lehner (not Mike Smith).

[travel_dude]

42 minutes ago, jjgallow said:

 

I would have supported that.    Or similar.

Darling was the only "similar" actually available.  Would CHI traded him to us?  Possibly.

Grubauer was not made available to us.  If he had been, we might have paid a lot more than we could stand.  

Raanta went for a 1st rounder.  Might have the same trajectory as Smith on a reallly bad team.

[MAC331]

16 minutes ago, travel_dude said:

Darling was the only "similar" actually available.  Would CHI traded him to us?  Possibly.

Grubauer was not made available to us.  If he had been, we might have paid a lot more than we could stand.  

Raanta went for a 1st rounder.  Might have the same trajectory as Smith on a reallly bad team.

Going back in thought I have to wonder where DET will end up with Mrazek and their cap situation. I still would have preferred Mrazek as my first choice for a starting goalie.

[Cowtownguy]

It is important to address glaring weaknesses on the team. By that, I mean identify where we had serious problems and beef up the position with more talent. Obviously, if you don't have the talent, then you are going to lose more often than you win. But, in today's NHL, teams are so close in talent, that the difference is often about chemistry/heart/desire, whatever you want to call it (not hole plugging). The Oilers showed that you can have great talent and lose if players are not putting out the effort collectively at the right times. All it takes for one line to play poorly is ill timing on the part of just one player. When two lines are struggling in this regard half of the time, you lose a lot. I always believed that Hall was a cancer on that team even though his stats were very good.

 

Along the same line of logic, to address the goaltending matter, I do believe that Smith/Lack is a better combination than Elliott/Johnson. I suspect that the talent is comparable. The difference is how it is deployed. Elliott went on a great run to get us into the playoffs. Solid guy. But, he also let in goals at such terrible times that they sucked the momentum and drive right out of the team. He rarely rebounded from mistakes well too. It was not uncommon for him to visibly show a lack of confidence. The Blues were frustrated by his inconsistency. In fairness to Elliott, the team rarely rebounded from momentum swings, and that is a problem.

 

The '89 Flames had it all. They had a lot of talent of course. They also had swagger, arrogance, drive, humour etc. I hope that we see some of these attributes from this Flames organization. I don't care of the goalie is old, if the best player is rather short, or if we are overplaying a few guys. We need chemistry.

[jjgallow]

2 hours ago, travel_dude said:

Darling was the only "similar" actually available.  Would CHI traded him to us?  Possibly.

Grubauer was not made available to us.  If he had been, we might have paid a lot more than we could stand.  

Raanta went for a 1st rounder.  Might have the same trajectory as Smith on a reallly bad team.

 

Perhaps.   I would have also been ok with someone more up and coming.   I think there were more available, but the Flames weren't prepared to accept the risk which came with acquiring a first year or 2nd year or rookie NHL goalie who is "elite for their age".   I get it.   But at the end of the day I would have personally preferred that risk to the current assurance of average goaltending at best.

[jjgallow]

3 hours ago, kehatch said:

In fact, his numbers were better the Fleury, Bishop, Elliott, Mason, or most of the other options. On the third worst team in the NHL. 

 

First of all, you really have to distort the numbers to say that, imho (especially on a topic about recent and future playoff performance).  

 

Secondly, I fail to see the point of comparing him to a bunch of big names who are either currently struggling, or past their prime.   When Smith is in fact the oldest of them all (by a lot).   I would not want Any of those names here right now, to be honest.  Although their age Is more appealing, for the most part.

 

At the end of the day, we're talking about acquiring a 35 year old with a Save Percentage which is 33rd in the NHL.  And a GAA which is 51st.   That is a Heck of a thing to justify.  Yeah, the 51st overall GAA, we can factor in the team he played on.    The 33rd overall Save Percentage?  I'm not so sure he gets a handicap there.  And even if he does, not substantially.   Again, compared to other goalies on bad teams (ie., Robin Lehner), he is hardly a standout.   

[cross16]

19 minutes ago, jjgallow said:

Again, compared to other goalies on bad teams (ie., Robin Lehner), he is hardly a standout.   

 

Well, the only problem with that statement is he actually does compare well to Lehner. As a matter of fact, he comes out ahead when you consider the teams in front of them

Problem with a lot of this argument is raw Save % and GAA are 2 of the worst stats you can use to compare goalies. Both are incredibly flawed. 

 

 

[travel_dude]

42 minutes ago, jjgallow said:

 

Perhaps.   I would have also been ok with someone more up and coming.   I think there were more available, but the Flames weren't prepared to accept the risk which came with acquiring a first year or 2nd year or rookie NHL goalie who is "elite for their age".   I get it.   But at the end of the day I would have personally preferred that risk to the current assurance of average goaltending at best.

 

If the said goalies were available, a team would have made a trade for them.  Saros?  No way.  Others that could be a complete waste of using the chance on?  Perhaps.  An unsigned player in Europe?  Um.....

 

I can't say that I was happy with Smith as a (seemingly) first choice, but probably better than year 1 of Hiller here.  I won't say anything negative about Smith if he wins against EDM and ANA in the first games of the year.  I'll hold off on that, unless he starts to look like the early season Elliott.  In which case, we probably get to see Eddie Lack's dad in the stands.

[CheersMan]

1 hour ago, jjgallow said:

 

Perhaps.   I would have also been ok with someone more up and coming.   I think there were more available, but the Flames weren't prepared to accept the risk which came with acquiring a first year or 2nd year or rookie NHL goalie who is "elite for their age".   I get it.   But at the end of the day I would have personally preferred that risk to the current assurance of average goaltending at best.

Your management skills would drag us out of a playoff position this season, adding to the back-log of 3 very good young goaltenders already in the system.  It would also lead to BT’s firing after failing to address the GT position.  We needed a proven starter to bridge the 1-2 year gap, not another up and comer destined to fail and likely nowhere to play.  Smith is better than average, you obviously haven’t watched him play much, but instead resort to combing through columns of meaningless numbers to muster up your predictable “other view”. Age is not the be-all-end-all, Smith has plenty in the tank.  Gio does too.

[kehatch]

54 minutes ago, cross16 said:

 

Well, the only problem with that statement is he actually does compare well to Lehner. As a matter of fact, he comes out ahead when you consider the teams in front of them

Problem with a lot of this argument is raw Save % and GAA are 2 of the worst stats you can use to compare goalies. Both are incredibly flawed. 

 

 

 

The problem is some people are making the case that Smith requires a rebound season to get the goaltending the Flames need. In reality he has been playing fine. He needs to see marginal improvements, which should come naturally playing on a better team. 

 

There are definitely question marks. But that would be true for just about any goalie we acquired. 

[kehatch]

For the record, I don't love the Smith acquisition. At 35 he clearly isn't more then a 1 or 2 year option, and their are questions about how good of an option he might be. Given the acquisition cost to get him I would have preferred a better option. 

 

But he should add stability in net. To suggest he will provide average tending at best is wrong. At least in my opinion. Hopefully the Flames find an internal solution in the next two years. 

[cross16]

20 minutes ago, kehatch said:

For the record, I don't love the Smith acquisition. At 35 he clearly isn't more then a 1 or 2 year option, and their are questions about how good of an option he might be. Given the acquisition cost to get him I would have preferred a better option. 

 

But he should add stability in net. To suggest he will provide average tending at best is wrong. At least in my opinion. Hopefully the Flames find an internal solution in the next two years. 

 

I agree with this take. i didn't like it and I fear it could very easily go down as a poor trade because of Hickey's upside and Smith's age. I agree that if smith continues to play like he has the last several season, minus 14-15, the Flames will be in good shape. My fear with Smith more has to do with at what point does age catch up with him and does it happen in the next 2 years. I dont' want to make a direct comparison to Hiller, but that can be common with goalies that they look find up until mid 30s and suddenly fall off a cliff, it's not usually a steady decline.

 

That's my fear, but it may not happen and I do agree that there was going to be a fair bit of risk with any acquisition that the Flames could have made in the offseason. There was no great solution available to them. 

[jjgallow]

1 hour ago, cross16 said:

 

Well, the only problem with that statement is he actually does compare well to Lehner. As a matter of fact, he comes out ahead when you consider the teams in front of them

Problem with a lot of this argument is raw Save % and GAA are 2 of the worst stats you can use to compare goalies. Both are incredibly flawed. 

 

Fair enough, but ...yeah, Robin Lehner IS the better goalie, quite consistently.    So I wouldn't mind knowing...I keep seeing that stats screenshot on this forum lately, where's it from?    I've seen some pretty surprising stuff out of it.   I'd be interested in how they calculate "high danger", "low danger", etc.

 

It's a Really nice looking screenshot but I've never seen anybody reference it or include definitions.    Most stats are incredibly flawed if used incorrectly.  I've always found, the more colors, the more flaws

[jjgallow]

46 minutes ago, kehatch said:

For the record, I don't love the Smith acquisition. At 35 he clearly isn't more then a 1 or 2 year option, and their are questions about how good of an option he might be. Given the acquisition cost to get him I would have preferred a better option. 

 

But he should add stability in net. To suggest he will provide average tending at best is wrong. At least in my opinion. Hopefully the Flames find an internal solution in the next two years. 

 

Well that's at least good to know.   Bottom line, I don't like the trade but more importantly I don't see it as an upgrade.    I think the only person on these boards who may end up liking how we handled Elliot, would be Flyerfan with his Flyers.   We'll find out soon enough.

[cross16]

17 minutes ago, jjgallow said:

 

Fair enough, but ...yeah, Robin Lehner IS the better goalie, quite consistently.    So I wouldn't mind knowing...I keep seeing that stats screenshot on this forum lately, where's it from?    I've seen some pretty surprising stuff out of it.   I'd be interested in how they calculate "high danger", "low danger", etc.

 

It's a Really nice looking screenshot but I've never seen anybody reference it or include definitions.    Most stats are incredibly flawed if used incorrectly.  I've always found, the more colors, the more flaws

 

would be a pretty quick google JJ to find out the data. It's not like they hide it... https://www.dispellingvoodoo.com/ is the site that puts the data into the charts.

 

He isn't but you are going to draw your own conclusions and that's fine. But the more data you look at the more you see Lehenr really isn't all that good and smith is quite a bit better. See the last 3 years. 

[travel_dude]

1 minute ago, jjgallow said:

 

Well that's at least good to know.   Bottom line, I don't like the trade but more importantly I don't see it as an upgrade.    I think the only person on these boards who may end up liking how we handled Elliot, would be Flyerfan with his Flyers.   We'll find out soon enough.

 

This team is hard on goalies.  But they have to give back enough to keep the trust of the coach and players.  Elliott had the worse possible matchup in the playoffs (the team in front of him combined with how he played against them all season, especially his record against the Ducks), and that combined with his struggles through almost half a season caused the team to decide to move on.  

 

I don't think FF is happy about the Flyers signing Elliott at all.   

[kehatch]

A big part of second guessing the move is trying to figure out who was available.  Bishop clearly didn't want to play here.  Fleury decided to stay in Vegas.  Elliott might not have wanted to come back, and even if he did that is a tough sell to your players and fans.  Lehner is a big unknown, and Cross is showing some of the issues with him. The bottom line is Smith is a decent fit for a year or two.  Best case is Gilles, Parsons, Rittich, or another steps up. I also think we are ignoring Lack.  He was looking really promising until he moved to Carolina.  He could have starter potential.  

 

Regardless, back to the main thread.  The Flames need goal tending THIS SEASON to be contenders and I think Smith will give us that THIS SEASON.  

[rickross]

21 hours ago, kehatch said:

 

You don't see Hamonic + Stone as an upgrade over Wideman + Engelland? Tough crowd.  

 

As for the rest, Smith was better statistically then Elliott/Johnson on a much worse team.  He was also more consistent.  Also, you don't have to go back very far to find average playoff goal-tending winning the cup.  5 on 5 Pittsburgh and Chicago were both very average.  Overall, Murray was fantastic this season in the playoffs.  But a season ago his stats were identical to Elliott.  Which weren't anywhere near as good as Smith's were the last time he was in the playoffs (who has a 0.945% save percentage in the playoffs).

 

I am not trying to make a case that Smith is great.  I am certainly not making a case that he is better then Murray.  But you are off base in your theory that you need an elite goalie to win a cup.  In fact, for the vast majority of goalies they look great on great teams and poor on poor teams.  As we saw when Tim Thomas won Boston a Cup, Halak almost took Montreal to the cup (over Carey Price), Elliott was lights out in the playoffs for St Louis, Dubnyk transformed in Minnesota, etc, etc.   

Tough crowd indeed. Let's atleast give Smith/Lack a chance to play before we write them off. I'm not a huge fan of our new tandem but I'll let things play out before passing judgement. Yes Smith is 35, I believe Rinne is the same age and he he's still playing elite hockey, not to mention Rinne has more miles than Smith. Smith may have had a 2-3 yr window were the Yotes were a truly competitive team, since then he's been playing for a bottom feeder and still put up respectable #'s. 

 

He's not the ideal choice but he's far from the worst option available. I'm more concerned with him staying healthy, if not..we live or die with Eddie Lack. We beefed up our D for a reason and hopefully it does relieve pressure off our goalies. At this point I'm still more comfortable with Smith/Lack than an unproven Gillies/Rittich tandem.

[jjgallow]

37 minutes ago, kehatch said:

Regardless, back to the main thread.  The Flames need goal tending THIS SEASON to be contenders and I think Smith will give us that THIS SEASON.  

 

Right then, main thread it is.  I want to be supportive this season and I want to have that bright attitude and...yeah.    It's tough with the goalie moves.  Especially when even the people I'm arguing the matter with don't like the goalies moves either.

 

At the end of the day Smith could surprise us.  He could prove me wrong, he could set it on fire, he could shut that door.

 

But then, he wouldn't be an average goaltender.

 

No matter what happens, I don't like our odds of being a true contender with average goaltending.   I think most would agree you need something along the lines of above-average, to elite.