Duhatschek: l’intersaison post-Treliving des Flames devrait être pleine de drames et de grandes décisions
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MonkeySailor
@Flames de Calgary
Duhatschek: l’intersaison post-Treliving des Flames devrait être pleine de drames et de grandes décisions
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MonkeySailor
5 Comments
Some salient quotes:
> Young players everywhere around the NHL were getting a chance to play these past few weeks as their college seasons ended — everywhere but in Calgary. The Flames didn’t turn to Pelletier, Coronato or the rising goaltending star, Dustin Wolf, until the final meaningless game of the regular season. When it was too little, too late.
> And that was their season in a nutshell: Not enough key saves and not enough key goals at the defining moments of the season.
> That’s how you lose a league-high 30 one-goal games. Sutter is a crafty contrarian and has been his entire coaching life. That will never change. The Flames clearly needed a spark. Potentially, they could have gotten it from any of those young players. But Sutter’s playbook rarely varies — he prefers the safe, low-risk veteran path.
. . .
> Until there’s a new GM in place, it’s impossible to know if they’re going to act decisively and change personnel in a meaningful way — or if they will rely on a series of half measures, which has been the organizational way ever since Murray Edwards took control of the ownership group. Philosophically, the history of the Flames organization is the following: It’s all about patching and plugging, on the grounds that the bad years aren’t — deep down — as bad as they look. And if you can just fix the overtime record and get the goaltending back to where it was a year ago, then maybe you can get by with just a tweak.
> The net result is you can have a bad season followed by a good season, and go on that way endlessly. But you never really come close, because you never get those core pieces — those Connor McDavids, those Connor Bedards — that can change the course of your franchise in a heartbeat. The Flames haven’t come close for a long time — 2004, when they lost in the Stanley Cup Final to Tampa Bay. So, they’re at a crossroads.
Team that wasn’t good enough and massively underachieved expected to have interesting off-season with major changes, that’s hard hitting journalism right there
If the logic is the team is going to win now, why did they rest on their laurels and do nothing?
Everyone knew goaltending was sinking our season. If the goal was the playoffs, Wolf should’ve been called up 2 months ago. If the logic is to do everything to win now, you don’t worry about what potential effects it has on the player (and I don’t buy it after he had almost 2 seasons of pro-experience) and simply give the best performer a chance. Instead, they did nothing and let their « ace » sink the season. That and never fixing their PP… that and apparently not practicing their OT play (if I’m wrong I’m open to being corrected). We didn’t see our youth until the very last game and got the worst possible pick possible when missing a playoff spot. They pissed away a season not even attempting to do anything about it when we had been strafing below a playoff spot the last 2 months. Bad taste all around, especially when the core is mostly in their late 20s and early 30s. You can’t afford to have « lost seasons » with one of the oldest teams in the league.
I think the Flames have (roughly) the same options as last offseason:
1. Continue forward as is: the team as constructed should be good enough (as is) to make the playoffs regardless of who the coach is. Try to re-sign Lindholm and Hanifin, and hope we get bounce back seasons from « everyone » next season.
2. Retool: Recognize that players like Backlund and Toffoli probably have unusually high values due to their strong season, Lindholm and Hanifin may not re-sign, and some of our aging veterans with term might be better moved before they start experiencing age related decline. Focus on young NHL players who haven’t broken out, prospects that are NHL ready, and first round draft picks. The team on paper won’t be as good next season but likely will be 2 or 3 seasons down the road.
Neither approach makes me happy, but they’re the realistic options I see.
We should be moving players who had career years for picks. Let’s feel serious pain for 1-2 years for a future complete well rounded deep playoff team.
Let go: Lewis, Lucic, Ritchie, Stone
Trade: Toffoli, Backlund, Tanev, Hanifin, Markstrom
Resign/extend: Lindholm, Dube, Stecher, Zadorov
Extend 1way: Pelletier, Schwindt, Phillips, Poirier, Wolf
Figure out: Kylington