Future of the Calgary Flames

[puckIuck]

I can see them going deep in the playoffs. san jose is mediocre, golden knights were a one hit wonder, oilers are in shambles, canucks are rebuilding, kings are old, yotes will be yotes.. the pacific is theirs to lose

 

[Jarey Curry]

So many people are down on Hanifin. I still think he has the ability to be a #1. The dude is only 21. Give him a few years and I think he surprises a lot of people.

I was gonna say didnt they just add a potential future franchise defenseman in Hanifin? Look at the hype in Buffalo after adding Dahlin. "Hanifins not Dahlin" Yeah he isnt and doesnt have to be, he just needs to play up to his potential and Calgarys gonna be fine

 

[Mr Positive]

I can see them going deep in the playoffs. san jose is mediocre, golden knights were a one hit wonder, oilers are in shambles, canucks are rebuilding, kings are old, yotes will be yotes.. the pacific is theirs to lose

Oilers were in shambles because we had a lot of players with either health issues or personal issues. Next season seems to be starting issue-free, so don't be surprised if we see the 2016-17 Oilers return, and btw we are now better on paper than that team was.

 

[Johnny Hoxville]

The Flames are my pick to win the Pacific next season, their window is also just opening.

 

[absolute garbage]

Flames have been pretty desperate recently in trying to 'fix' their team. Hasn't gone very well. Latest move being the James "new Brouwer" Neal signing. Coaches come and go. They do have some talent but it's been a struggle putting it together, bouncing between barely making playoffs and just bad seasons. Bad goaltending hasn't helped, and it's a huge looming question mark going forward with Smith getting up there in age.

Using a 4th overall on Bennett was a major blow, as has been all the picks dealt. They have a couple promising defense prospects and there might be some turnover on the blueline in near future but overall they are pretty locked to their current core of established players and their future is now.

How far will that take them? Well, unlike Central, the Pacific is wide open. If they can get quality goaltending, I think they will be challenging for the top 3 spots in the division for the next two years. That's a big if though, and I have a feeling that there will disappointments and that the blueline will end up having a bit of a makeover after that.

 

[JurassicTunga]

The Flames are my pick to win the Pacific next season, their window is also just opening.

Same for me.

 

[Thetruthteller]

I can't see the Flames making playoffs personally. They're in that very ugly place of no-man's land. No game-breaking talent on the roster whatsoever. And no, I don't believe Gaudreau is any sort of game-breaker.

God this whole thread reaks of petty jabs trying to start arguments, if Gaudreau isn’t a game breaking talent idk what is.

 

[Pens x]

No one would care about the Flames if they played in America. They are pretty vanilla and just basically the Canadian version of the Florida Panthers.

 

[Thetruthteller]

Dead serious here...
You expect 40 point Neal/Lindholm to be a big improvement over 40 point Ferland? Self admittedly I love Ferland, so Im not sure I see a big difference.

Is Monahan expected to be 100% for training camp?

Then you really have never watched either of them play if you think they are even close in playing ability. A lot of experts in this thread that clearly know shit about the flames

 

[blankall]

No one would care about the Flames if they played in America. They are pretty vanilla and just basically the Canadian version of the Florida Panthers.

The Panthers have a pretty great group of young players. Barkov has the potential to be one of the best players in the game.

 

[BruinsFan37]

What is the status of the Calgary arena situation? Last I heard the Flames and the city weren't talking to each other.

 

[Pyrophorus]

OK. Perhaps I was a little harsh, but your OP is incredibly extreme.

So weird. You agreed with him on some points, even meeting him halfway on some, and then you call it "utter garbage" and "vitriol"
The truth is (even according to you), he made SOME good points.

 

[johnjm22]

Their future can be summed up in one word: mediocrity.

At the start of each season their fans and management always thinks they're better than they are.

 

[DFF]

Doesn't matter what he was on " Pace for". Its a ridiculous term that keeps getting brought up. FYI he finished with 84.

Again, I think they are a good team. There's just nothing truly " Great".

I get your point...Austin Matthews is a 63 pt scorer. 21 points behind Johnny in that case.

 

[DFF]

I love the thread from a fan of a team that has not won in 50 yrs calling another team mediocre.

 

[CraigsList]

Didn’t know we had so many Calgary Flame experts around these boards considering we have to have one of the lowest amount of people in our forum.

Please tell us more since we don’t know **** about our team.

 

[greasysnapper]

Couldn't agree more with the general sentiments of the OP. This is not a team that is built to go far in the playoffs; if it can even get there.

The cupboards are practically bare, the roster while better continues to lack depth and a few key pieces are likely on the downswing. This team has some great pieces no doubt, but not enough to get them over the hump. On paper, this team is not better than San Jose, Los Angeles, or Vegas. And it's debatable if they'd even be ahead of Anaheim on paper (I see the Ducks as a stronger team) and that's just within their division that includes a team with the best player in the league on it. The doesn't even include the team's in the central... Nashville, Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minnesota... Calgary and a bunch of team's are on paper fighting for the wildcard spot, if they're lucky. And like one poster in this thread said, this is the best team the flames have had in years. The best team they've had in years on paper and it doesn't even look like a lock for the playoffs. If that doesn't sum up this team perfect.

What they really need to do is trade Gaudreau. Get a king's ransome for him. He'll never have more value than he has now and that kind of return would be insane. Bite the bullet you know is coming in 4 years and start building something that can win, and build it around Monahan, Tkachuk, Hanifin and Valimaki.

 

[Lunatik]

The amount of ignorance regarding the Flames is absolutely astonishing.

"No game breaking talent" - despite having Gaudreau who is coming off a point per game season and Monahan who has to be the most underrated player on all of HF, the guy is 18th in the entire NHL in goals scored and 5th in game winning goals since entering the league, yet can't even get the respect of being called a #1C.

People completely ignore that we were firmly in a playoff position last season before Mike Smith fell to injury, they ignore that this was also done with next to no secondary scoring and shooting an astonishing low shooting percentage. They look at the final standings and see we finished 20th last year and ignore that the Flames were without 3 of their top players over the final 8-10 games.

In case anyone was wondering, here are how Flames did for shooting this past season compared to the previous 4 seasons (min. 20 games for this past season and the total for the previous 4):

Player Name	Shots (Prev. 4 seasons)	SH% (Prev. 4 seasons)	Shots (2017-18)	SH% (2017-18)	Difference
Backlund, Mikael	633	11.2%	214	6.5%	-4.7%
Ferland, Micheal	262	8.0%	144	14.6%	6.6%
Giordano, Mark	700	8.3%	214	6.1%	-2.2%
Brodie, TJ	394	6.9%	118	3.4%	-3.5%
Bennett, Sam	259	12.0%	157	7.0%	-5.0%
Frolik, Michael	752	8.8%	167	6.0%	-2.8%
Brouwer, Troy	534	14.4%	79	7.6%	-6.8%
Hathaway, Garnet	33	3.0%	68	5.9%	2.9%
Stajan, Matt	233	14.2%	65	6.2%	-8.0%
Lazar, Curtis	196	6.6%	65	3.1%	-3.5%
Hamonic, Travis	487	3.3%	107	0.9%	-2.4%
Stone, Michael	491	4.1%	98	3.1%	-1.0%
Versteeg, Kris	583	9.6%	49	6.1%	-3.5%
Kulak, Brett	30	0.0%	73	2.7%	2.7%
Gaudreau, Johnny	567	12.9%	227	10.6%	-2.3%
Monahan, Sean	727	14.7%	202	15.3%	0.6%
Hamilton, Dougie	714	5.9%	270	6.3%	0.4%
Tkachuk, Matthew	142	9.2%	188	12.8%	3.6%

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

So the only guys to improve their shooting percentage are Ferland (first full season w/Gaudreau & Monahan), Hathaway (2nd year), Kulak (2nd year), Tkachuk (2nd year) and Monahan and Hamilton, both of whom fall into a normal +/- range of less than a percent.

Overall totals for those players is a drop of approximately 1.6%, even halfing that and shooting an additional 0.8% on the year would have seen about a 20 goal increase would have put the Flames middle of the pack in goals... shooting the full +1.6%, would have seen the Flames top 10 in scoring.

People loved to talk about how shooting stats will normalize when the Flames shot over their heads a few years back, but now completely ignore that when the opposite has happened.

 

[JPeeper]

Some great takes in this thread, trade Gaudreau, Flames have no game breaking talent, they are irrelevant and no one talks about them, James Neal is equivalent to Troy Brouwer.

So much hockey knowledge in one place, glad that such a place exists.

 

[absolute garbage]

Some great takes in this thread, trade Gaudreau, Flames have no game breaking talent, they are irrelevant and no one talks about them, James Neal is equivalent to Troy Brouwer.

So much hockey knowledge in one place, glad that such a place exists.

While Neal has been a much better player in his career than Brouwer, their last 2 seasons before signing with Flames weren't that different. Neal 141 games and 85 points (0.6 p/g), Brouwer 164 games and 82 points (0.5 p/g). And in fact, last season, after starting the year really hot, Neal only scored 25 points (13 goals) and was a whopping -16 in his last 50 games (0.5 p/g).

Overall, Neal has been clearly trending down, as it's completely expected for a player like him in his 30s. He's going to slow down even more as the years goes by, and just like Brouwer I think he will be a player Flames fans can't wait to get rid of when he has couple years left in his deal.

 

[Lunatik]

While Neal has been a much better player in his career than Brouwer, their last 2 seasons before signing with Flames weren't that different. Neal 141 games and 85 points (0.6 p/g), Brouwer 164 games and 82 points (0.5 p/g). And in fact, last season, after starting the year really hot, Neal only scored 25 points (13 goals) and was a whopping -16 in his last 50 games (0.5 p/g).

Overall, Neal has been clearly trending down, as it's completely expected for a player like him in his 30s. He's going to slow down even more as the years goes by, and just like Brouwer I think he will be a player Flames fans can't wait to get rid of when he has couple years left in his deal.

There is a massive difference in playing styles between the two players. Also, you make 0.1 points per game sound like it is minimal and while it's just a point every 10 games or so, it's the difference between a 40 point player and a 50 point player. Neal has proven himself to be able to score 20+ goals and put up 40+ points with 2nd liners. I'm also not so sure Neal is "declining" as people like to claim, his only real "decline" was when he left the Pens and their offensive weapons as linemates.

Also regarding Brouwer, I think a hand injury may have derailed his time here. He actually started well (his regular pace) with the Flames until he suffered a hand injury in December of his first season, he probably should have been out 4-6 weeks but missed just two weeks (likely because it was also when Gaudreau was out with his hand injury), he really struggled for the next couple weeks, but then finally started picking things up (just 4 points in 11 games, but he was trending upwards), it was then that he got into a fight and then the rest of the year it seemed as if he avoided confrontation.

 

[Tkachuky]

The Panthers have a pretty great group of young players. Barkov has the potential to be one of the best players in the game.

Its ok because once Crosby and Malkin start declining, the Pens will be shaved ice cubes. Just wait...

 

[JPeeper]

While Neal has been a much better player in his career than Brouwer, their last 2 seasons before signing with Flames weren't that different. Neal 141 games and 85 points (0.6 p/g), Brouwer 164 games and 82 points (0.5 p/g). And in fact, last season, after starting the year really hot, Neal only scored 25 points (13 goals) and was a whopping -16 in his last 50 games (0.5 p/g).

Overall, Neal has been clearly trending down, as it's completely expected for a player like him in his 30s. He's going to slow down even more as the years goes by, and just like Brouwer I think he will be a player Flames fans can't wait to get rid of when he has couple years left in his deal.

Except Brouwer has always been shit and Neal has always been a goal scoring machine. If Neal is going to struggle and only get 0.5points/game when he struggles I will take it. Brouwer when he struggled was barely an AHL'er, Brouwer at his peak with the Flames was barely a 3rd liner. Neal was the reason Vegas got off to the hot start they did.

Neal is nothing like the horror show that was Brouwer. He is 30 going to be 31, he isn't that old. Flames fans may come to dislike Neal/his contract, but it won't be within the first 3 months of it like we did with Brouwer. By Brouwer's first year he was on the 4th line and don't let me remember last year. I HIGHLY doubt Neal can't have at minimum 2-3 good years.

 

[Critical13]

The amount of ignorance regarding the Flames is absolutely astonishing.

"No game breaking talent" - despite having Gaudreau who is coming off a point per game season and Monahan who has to be the most underrated player on all of HF, the guy is 18th in the entire NHL in goals scored and 5th in game winning goals since entering the league, yet can't even get the respect of being called a #1C.

People completely ignore that we were firmly in a playoff position last season before Mike Smith fell to injury, they ignore that this was also done with next to no secondary scoring and shooting an astonishing low shooting percentage. They look at the final standings and see we finished 20th last year and ignore that the Flames were without 3 of their top players over the final 8-10 games.

In case anyone was wondering, here are how Flames did for shooting this past season compared to the previous 4 seasons (min. 20 games for this past season and the total for the previous 4):

Player Name	Shots (Prev. 4 seasons)	SH% (Prev. 4 seasons)	Shots (2017-18)	SH% (2017-18)	Difference
Backlund, Mikael	633	11.2%	214	6.5%	-4.7%
Ferland, Micheal	262	8.0%	144	14.6%	6.6%
Giordano, Mark	700	8.3%	214	6.1%	-2.2%
Brodie, TJ	394	6.9%	118	3.4%	-3.5%
Bennett, Sam	259	12.0%	157	7.0%	-5.0%
Frolik, Michael	752	8.8%	167	6.0%	-2.8%
Brouwer, Troy	534	14.4%	79	7.6%	-6.8%
Hathaway, Garnet	33	3.0%	68	5.9%	2.9%
Stajan, Matt	233	14.2%	65	6.2%	-8.0%
Lazar, Curtis	196	6.6%	65	3.1%	-3.5%
Hamonic, Travis	487	3.3%	107	0.9%	-2.4%
Stone, Michael	491	4.1%	98	3.1%	-1.0%
Versteeg, Kris	583	9.6%	49	6.1%	-3.5%
Kulak, Brett	30	0.0%	73	2.7%	2.7%
Gaudreau, Johnny	567	12.9%	227	10.6%	-2.3%
Monahan, Sean	727	14.7%	202	15.3%	0.6%
Hamilton, Dougie	714	5.9%	270	6.3%	0.4%
Tkachuk, Matthew	142	9.2%	188	12.8%	3.6%

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

So the only guys to improve their shooting percentage are Ferland (first full season w/Gaudreau & Monahan), Hathaway (2nd year), Kulak (2nd year), Tkachuk (2nd year) and Monahan and Hamilton, both of whom fall into a normal +/- range of less than a percent.

Overall totals for those players is a drop of approximately 1.6%, even halfing that and shooting an additional 0.8% on the year would have seen about a 20 goal increase would have put the Flames middle of the pack in goals... shooting the full +1.6%, would have seen the Flames top 10 in scoring.

People loved to talk about how shooting stats will normalize when the Flames shot over their heads a few years back, but now completely ignore that when the opposite has happened.

That's a great analysis, but do you not think it's a fair criticism to say that a team that loses a few top players for 10 games and goes through a goalie injury and this causes them to finish 20th overall...has some serious flaws?

I think you are right about some players on the Flames being underrated, but the criticism isn't completely unfounded. They have high end talent, but they don't have any elite players outside Gio and Gaudreau, and while Monahan is a very good young player, questioning his #1C status is completely fair in my opinion. He's in that low end #1C conversation...he's rising, and likely will be a mediocre #1C by next year, but still...if the "average #1C is a player like Jack Eichel or John Tavares, then Monahan has some work to do to get into that group.

I appreciate the time you put into your post though, it's a well thought out argument and shows the flaws of relying on a 1 year sample.

 

[Lunatik]

That's a great analysis, but do you not think it's a fair criticism to say that a team that loses a few top players for 10 games and goes through a goalie injury and this causes them to finish 20th overall...has some serious flaws?

I think you are right about some players on the Flames being underrated, but the criticism isn't completely unfounded. They have high end talent, but they don't have any elite players outside Gio and Gaudreau, and while Monahan is a very good young player, questioning his #1C status is completely fair in my opinion. He's in that low end #1C conversation...he's rising, and likely will be a mediocre #1C by next year, but still...if the "average #1C is a player like Jack Eichel or John Tavares, then Monahan has some work to do to get into that group.

I appreciate the time you put into your post though, it's a well thought out argument and shows the flaws of relying on a 1 year sample.

Most teams that lose their starting goalie and are forced to use two rookies will struggle. Most teams when they lose 2 of their top 3 point produces, will struggle, especially one that as I pointed out, lacked secondary scoring. Which is what the Flames addressed this summer. Adding both Lindholm and Neal, adds two players better than last years #1RW (who went to Carolina), Adding Ryan could potentially (if he plays RW) push last years #2 RW (Frolik), to the 4th line.

Another thing no one mentions about our moves, is we added 3 RHS forwards, something that we quite often only had on our 4th line last year, so opposition goalies will see some different looks this year compared to last.