UFA 2020, Who’d You Sign?

[cross16]

I didn't understand it last year, and still don't, but I think the Offence and lack there of gets too much focus. Food for thought the Flames were the 3rd highest scoring team in the playoffs (yes I know the PP was a key part of this) and then were the 12th highest scoring team at 5 on 5 once Ward took over. 

 

The problems the Flames have on offence is their top line is not built to play the coach wants them to and is not built to playoff the type of game you need to play in the playoffs. Bringing in depth pieces to try and "improve" the scoring is not the answer, it was always going to lie in their ability to move Gaudreau or Monahan in good deals. 

 

Really hard to do and even harder in this market. 

 

 

[The_People1]

9 minutes ago, cross16 said:

I didn't understand it last year, and still don't, but I think the Offence and lack there of gets too much focus. 

 

A lot of our offense comes from our D.  

 

Gaudreau had his best season when Giordano was Norris level jumping into the play and joining the rush.  Well Giordano may have slowed down and cannot join the rush as frequently.  Add to that, our most mobile Dman Brodie is gone.

 

I don't believe Hanifin, Andersson, and Valimaki are 40-point Dmen.

 

We may score 20-goals less this season as a team.  Hopefully with Markstrom and Tanev, we cut down goals against by more than 20-goals to compensate.

[MP5029]

18 minutes ago, The_People1 said:

 

A lot of our offense comes from our D.  

 

Gaudreau had his best season when Giordano was Norris level jumping into the play and joining the rush.  Well Giordano may have slowed down and cannot join the rush as frequently.  Add to that, our most mobile Dman Brodie is gone.

 

I don't believe Hanifin, Andersson, and Valimaki are 40-point Dmen.

 

We may score 20-goals less this season as a team.  Hopefully with Markstrom and Tanev, we cut down goals against by more than 20-goals to compensate.

they would have to cut goals

against down by far more than that, if the team were to be better Cutting down goals against by the same as your offensive production loss is really just treading water 

[JTech780]

Nieto would have been a solid signing.

[CheersMan]

14 minutes ago, JTech780 said:

Nieto would have been a solid signing.

41 years young Marleau could probably double his pay this year if Duracell Battery wakes up and endorses this guy. 

[cross16]

41 minutes ago, The_People1 said:

 

A lot of our offense comes from our D.  

 

Gaudreau had his best season when Giordano was Norris level jumping into the play and joining the rush.  Well Giordano may have slowed down and cannot join the rush as frequently.  Add to that, our most mobile Dman Brodie is gone.

 

I don't believe Hanifin, Andersson, and Valimaki are 40-point Dmen.

 

We may score 20-goals less this season as a team.  Hopefully with Markstrom and Tanev, we cut down goals against by more than 20-goals to compensate.

 

I see it the other way. The Flames offence doesn't start with their D, their D benefit from the top line scoring. In his Norris trophy season Gio wasn't the catalyst he was the benefactor from the top line playing like one of the best in the league. Last year they fell down towards a 3rd line efficiency and Gio's numbers suffered accordingly. 

 

Flames didn't run their offence through their D last year or in the playoffs so i don't see how that's going to change next year or how their offence will drop. 

[MP5029]

Well some quick math Markstrom’s GAA is 2.75 last year, Ritter is 2.97 combined the work out to be 2.87...flames over all team was 3.147 last year using the worst case matrix of only playing 68 games...

 

last year our goals for average using worst case matrix of 71 games played was 2.873
 

if we subtract Hammer, Reider, Janks and Brodie’s goals, add Tanev’s our goals the projected goals for is 2.676

 

so, the end results on this very quick and dirty says if were are able to keep or do better than the 14 goals from the players out our differences are a positive but very tight games, if we do nothing the difference is a negative value also in very tight games, but are still losses...

 

the point is dispute the improvement we are still sinking, we need to add about 15 goals to be in the positive numbers here, I’m not positive that, that implement can come from within, at least not fully...therefore adding a 15 goal guy on the RW line 2 would do the trick, Especially I’d say Valimaki adds more than say Brodie’s 4 and hammers 3 Tanev only had 2 last year but he’s more about the stopping goals which is fine...

 

it’s pretty clear Toffoil would have been perfect with 18, Strome with 18 would be a good fit but, with storm we would probably be loosing a few goals in whoever goes the other way, so prob not the best option.

 

hoffman could fit well but he’s a LW we have enough of them, but he can play Rw but how effective is his scoring on the off wing?

 

another option, could be Laine in WPG for Gaudreau, his goals are about 10 more than Gaudreau so it’s pretty close and if there is some important form guys like Bennet, Lucic, Valimaki pits around 8 that too could work 

 

all and all, we clearly need more goals is the point not just the ability to keep them out of the net, which seems that’s covered , now we need a 2nd line RW who can pot 15+ 

 

 

[crazyflames]

6 hours ago, MP5029 said:

I don’t think Hall and heck maybe even AP were even given a serious look at by BT, we know Hall said that there was no pitch from Cgy...

 

this leads me to believe BT focus on just 2 FA’s and done.  A mistake? Maybe, Not

making an effort for Hall I think was but wait and see cap tight teams may become exposed to having to let go some good players which may max a trade value for us...maybe? 
 

what we do know is more work needs to be done, we have a huge offensive lack, especially with Brodie being him as he generated a lot from the back end and our RW is still very thin, and as far as being tougher in our own end, Tanev helps yes but he’s only one player who is prone to injury so it’s not totally resolved, but definitely improved. On that note, I could live with and it may be easier if we could find another but obviously cheaper stay at home D that can move the puck, and then worry about the RW holes don’t offensive hole that route.  Maybe we have some young guys in the pipe line who can do this and are closer to the NHL than we think? 

 

 

I will say this, VCR clearly wanted Tanev back, so they went out and Got Schmidt from the kings but it cost them about another mil per season to do it and it’s a long term contract.   So the more more I read about Tanev the only thing I don’t like about him is his injury issues, but that has to be expected from the way he plays.

 

 

First Schmidt is way more than Tanev, they don’t play the same game.  Second, if we are depending our scoring from the farm team, then we are really screwed.  

[MP5029]

10 minutes ago, crazyflames said:

First Schmidt is way more than Tanev, they don’t play the same game.  Second, if we are depending our scoring from the farm team, then we are really screwed.  

Schmidt? Not sure where that comes into play outside of vcr landing him, but he will help VCR nots as sound as Tanev but...he’s still pretty good but has more offensive production.

 

i don’t think VCR will miss Tanev as much but they paid more for it is the point, so we did well by looking at it that way...

 

Scoring  is a huge problem, still, we are actually worse off dispute the goals against dropping (or should) it’s not enough to offset the loss, we need a 15-20 goal guy and it’s obvious it’s needed on the RW 

[redfire11]

I wonder about a minor deal for Stockton to shore up our rw.

 

To TOR  3rd or 4th

to CGY https://www.capfriendly.com/players/joey-anderson

[JTech780]

2 minutes ago, redfire11 said:

I wonder about a minor deal for Stockton to shore up our rw.

 

To TOR  3rd or 4th

to CGY https://www.capfriendly.com/players/joey-anderson

 

They just traded Andreas Johnsson for him, so I doubt they are in a hurry to trade him for 3rd or a 4th. I like the target though.

 

I think Jeremy Bracco is still available as a UFA, he would be a good depth pick up and adds some scoring to Stockton.

[zima]

Well I guess we will see how many Games Hall plays this yr before he is on the injury list maybe thats why BT didn't try to sign him wants to see if he can actually play a season with out missing almost half of it. Okay perhaps I'm not the right person to make comments on what any management should or shouldn't do I don't read half the stuff you guys do I mostly find out whats going on by reading on here usually try to keep my keyboard mute mostly because I don't know what I'm talking about and causing drama on here. But I am still and always will be a Flames fan till the day they torch me and what I witnessed the last week really pissed me off most of those drafts in my mind were pointless other to just put bodies in the AHL if they even make it there they dropped 5 picks to grab some 3rds and of course we have no idea even if any of them will surface after there time in college or Junior's. We traded a 3rd to get gustafsson for a couple weeks of playoffs and that was that for that trade a few weeks rental for a 3rd so sad. I don't know how BT can make to me such dumb moves I don't think we are any better off than we were last yr Talbot and Rittich did in my mind not bad Only once have I seen this Team win in grabbing a goalie in UFA other than just ok now we are putting this team on the shoulders of a Goalie who might not even be any better than smith or Talbot. Color me confused . Forgot to mention I notice nobody has taken Hamonic yet.

[cross16]

I think the Flames will be quiet now until Mangiapane signs and they decide what direction they want to go there. I think a long term deal for Mangiapange (ie 4 or more as 3 years walks him to UFA) mirrors an Andrea Johnsson deal of 3.4 Mill AAV. A shorter term deal (2 years) is likely somewhere in the 2.5 to 2.8 range. 

 

so assuming a deal at a max of 3.5, would give the Flames about 3 mill in cap space (they are at 6.4 in space with a 16 player roster). So with Mangiapange signed they would have 3 million left to find 4 roster spots. A shorter term deal gives them a little more in cap space but not substantial.

 

Long story short, outside of players willing to play for the minimum external adds are done unless a trade is coming. Any trades done to improve the team I think would involve Hanifin, Gaudreau or Monahan but the Flames either have to gain cap space in the deal or the trades are dollar for dollar. 

 

I think i'm hard pressed to see much more change coming. I think the team is set for the most part unless they pull off a bigger trade but it seems like the market is working against them there. 

 

 

[ABC923]

It's a gamble, but maybe BT is looking at last year as a down season for a lot of guys. If we just look at shooting percentages, JG posted 8.6% (career low, almost 4 points lower than average), Monahan was at 13.3% (also career low, 1.6% lower than average), Giordano at 3.2% (lowest in over 10 years, almost 4 points below average).  I'm not saying that we should expect these guys to hit back to their averages this year, but if these three alone did, Gio would have had 6 more goals, Mony 3 more goals (his shot rates were also very low), and Johnny another 7.  That's 16 more goals in a shortened season right there. We might expect some regression from Lindholm, but otherwise nobody played above their career norms that remains on the team this year.  We can probably expect increased offensive production from Mangiapane (maybe another 3-5 goals), Dube (~5 more goals?), Bennett (5 more goals), Anderson (2-3 more), and whoever replaces Janko (2-3 more goals).  So assuming some guys return toward career norms while other young players improve, we could be adding anywhere from 20-40 goals this season.

 

Again, it's a gamble, but not a terrible one. 

[cross16]

9 minutes ago, ABC923 said:

It's a gamble, but maybe BT is looking at last year as a down season for a lot of guys. If we just look at shooting percentages, JG posted 8.6% (career low, almost 4 points lower than average), Monahan was at 13.3% (also career low, 1.6% lower than average), Giordano at 3.2% (lowest in over 10 years, almost 4 points below average).  I'm not saying that we should expect these guys to hit back to their averages this year, but if these three alone did, Gio would have had 6 more goals, Mony 3 more goals (his shot rates were also very low), and Johnny another 7.  That's 16 more goals in a shortened season right there. We might expect some regression from Lindholm, but otherwise nobody played above their career norms that remains on the team this year.  We can probably expect increased offensive production from Mangiapane (maybe another 3-5 goals), Dube (~5 more goals?), Bennett (5 more goals), Anderson (2-3 more), and whoever replaces Janko (2-3 more goals).  So assuming some guys return toward career norms while other young players improve, we could be adding anywhere from 20-40 goals this season.

 

Again, it's a gamble, but not a terrible one. 

 

I don't disagree. I'm sure it will go over great with the fanbase but I think your right that it is not the worst gamble. Also when you look at the last 2 Cup winners and Dallas this year there is some precedent there for teams that stuck with their core and gave them time. It's a calculated gamble. 

 

It also comes down to what is your alternative? if the forward market is as bad as it sound do you go and make bad deals just to say you made change? I mean just look at the Gaudreau proposal that were thrown around the internet were any of them good? What is the bigger gamble stick with this group or make a bad deal with your better players?

 

It isn't exciting and it's not the way most wanted to go but there is some logic to it. Made the team harder to play against, elevate some younger players, put in a number 1 goalie and there is reason to believe next year can be different. I'm not advocating its is Plan A or should be (but I think lets also be honest that Plan A for most people is not an option here) but it's far from a disaster. 

[sak22]

I think internal growth is also overlooked in these parts.  We ask for the proven UFA's, yet each time we go fishing in that market they get surpassed internally, go for Brouwer and Brouwer gets knocked down by Ferland's emergence, sign Neal and he gets out done by the guy who had never scored 20 in his career in Lindholm.  The question we need to ask is where is there room for further growth within, Mangiapane scored 17 despite spending a lot of time to start the season on the 4th, can he hit another level?  Dube should grow to be more than a 6 goal guy, Bennett also I don't believe has hit his ceiling.  People complain about poor development yet continue to want our top prospects continually pushed down the depth chart, I want to see what these guys can do in a season when given a good opportunity, don't care about handedness the best stretch we got out of any line last year was an all left line with Mang-Backs-Tkachuk.

[travel_dude]

55 minutes ago, cross16 said:

I think the Flames will be quiet now until Mangiapane signs and they decide what direction they want to go there. I think a long term deal for Mangiapange (ie 4 or more as 3 years walks him to UFA) mirrors an Andrea Johnsson deal of 3.4 Mill AAV. A shorter term deal (2 years) is likely somewhere in the 2.5 to 2.8 range. 

 

so assuming a deal at a max of 3.5, would give the Flames about 3 mill in cap space (they are at 6.4 in space with a 16 player roster). So with Mangiapange signed they would have 3 million left to find 4 roster spots. A shorter term deal gives them a little more in cap space but not substantial.

 

Long story short, outside of players willing to play for the minimum external adds are done unless a trade is coming. Any trades done to improve the team I think would involve Hanifin, Gaudreau or Monahan but the Flames either have to gain cap space in the deal or the trades are dollar for dollar. 

 

I think i'm hard pressed to see much more change coming. I think the team is set for the most part unless they pull off a bigger trade but it seems like the market is working against them there. 

 

 

 

I do think they is a small amount of change that will happen as time goes on.

Signing Mangiapane should be the priority, but I think they seriously need to look at trading Ryan for some cap relief.

We have 9F signed (plus Rinaldo - don't get me started).

Our 4th line is effectively Ryan and nobody else.

I would be keen on adding a RW and maybe Perry, but it would be at the expense of Ryan.

Dadanov if he could be had for 3.5m x 2 years.

Perry for about $1m or slightly less.

Even with zero salary coming back, that's next to impossible unless they go shorter term with Mangiapane.

 

Available cap now - $5.7m

Ryan - $3.1m

Total available - $8.8m

 

Mangiapane $3.4m x 4 years

Dadanov - $3.5m x 2 years

Perry - $1.0m x 1 year

Gawdin - $787k

Rinaldo - $700k

Kylingtron - $787k

Petrovic - $700k

 

Total = $10.87m (not enough)

 

[cross16]

I could wind up being wrong but i will be surprised if you see  Ryan traded. I think the argument for getting cap relief there is over blown because at the end of the day Ryan is worth every penny of his contract IMO. 

 

Gawdin may be an NHL player but can he step into the top 9 if there is an injury? Can he be a key faceoff player? Can he log minutes against good players/teams? Can he be on the busiest Pkers?

 

Huge step for Gawdin because Ryan does not just play a 4th line role. I don't' think you can replace Ryan for less than what he makes thus I don't agree trading him results in cap savings. 

[JTech780]

So a couple of guys I think that could be had on cheap contracts that could possibly play a top 9 role for the Flames are:

 

Jeremy Bracco RW: He is only 23, has put up great numbers in the AHL, he is small, but is highly skilled.

 

Josh Leivo RW/LW: Good skill, decent size, coming off a pretty serious injury, but it sounds like he will be ready to go to start the season.

 

Brendan Perlini LW/RW: Good size and skill, his effort level is inconsistent at best. Ward is a strong communicator and teacher, maybe he can get through to him. 

 

Dominik Simon C/LW/RW: Good skater, good skill a little small.

 

Conor Sheary LW/RW: Small, good skill, might be a bit expensive.

 

Drake Caggiula LW/RW: Small, but has a bit of a bulldog in him.

[travel_dude]

27 minutes ago, cross16 said:

I could wind up being wrong but i will be surprised if you see  Ryan traded. I think the argument for getting cap relief there is over blown because at the end of the day Ryan is worth every penny of his contract IMO. 

 

Gawdin may be an NHL player but can he step into the top 9 if there is an injury? Can he be a key faceoff player? Can he log minutes against good players/teams? Can he be on the busiest Pkers?

 

Huge step for Gawdin because Ryan does not just play a 4th line role. I don't' think you can replace Ryan for less than what he makes thus I don't agree trading him results in cap savings. 

 

You are probably right in that the level of trust in Ryan is huge.

If he is playing 4th line minutes though, I just don't see it.

He was relegated to the 4th line during the playoffs, rightfully so considering how Bennett played.

But it comes down to whether that is a good use of $3.1m.

 

The other option to create some space and add some top 9 talent is to use Hanifin in trade.

We would need to get back a lesser D along with it, or sign one in FA.

 

This may be a poor example of a value trade, but Hanifin to WPG for Roslovic and Niku.

We have to bump up Valimaki to 2nd pair, and use Kylington or Mackey with Niku on the 3rd pairing.

Then you still have Ryan there.  He would play with Lucic and Gawdin.

Gives you 3a / 3b lines.

 

Why this works is that you are moving out almost $5m and bringing back a couple of RFA's.

The total between the two should be less than Hanifin.

We get a RHS that was under-utilized in WPG and a RHS D-man with room to grow.

[The_People1]

Ryan was Bill Peter's pet going all the way back to Hurricane days.  He used to play PP for the Canes even.

 

Good utility veteran RHS C for those important faceoffs.  He has use case.   I don't mind keeping him but if we need the cap space to target a big fish, then move him and challenge a young kid or PTO in training camp.

[cross16]

If moving Ryan would land you a big fish than I would agree. But the difference in salary between moving out Ryan and promoting Gawdin is 2.3 million. 

 

I don't see how that lands you anyone of real value especially factoring in the hole you've now create on the PK with 2 of your top 4 PKers gone. 

[The_People1]

5 hours ago, MP5029 said:

they would have to cut goals

against down by far more than that, if the team were to be better Cutting down goals against by the same as your offensive production loss is really just treading water 

 

Ya agreed.  We are returning basically the same forwards.  Big changes in D.  Improved goaltending. 

 

There's really so much pressure on Gaudreau to return to 99-point form.  If he can get back to that, then we will be a top team.  If not, then we going to barely make the playoffs again.

[JTech780]

If Hamonic would sign a 1 year deal at $1m or under, would you bring him back?

 

He isn't a top 4 anymore that's for sure, but I think as 3rd pair guy, he can still fill a role. He would give a vet to play with Valimaki and RHS who can move up when Tanev inevitably gets injured.

 

From what I have heard, he wants to stay close to home, so would he take a big paycut to stay in Calgary. Not sure he is getting a lot of money or term anywhere at this point.

[JTech780]

I am going to guess that Treliving is going to force Kylington, Gawdin and Parsons to sign their QO's, like he did with Mangiapane.

 

The number for Kylington and Gawdin is $787,500.