Player Discussion Troy Brouwer - our $4.5 million grinder

[Jihadi Flames Fan]

Quite possibly our worst UFA signing in recent memory. 4th line RW; 0 goals, 5 assists; signed for 2 more seasons after this year. Buyout candidate if we can't find a way to offload him somehow. Yikes!

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[Lunatik]

What exactly is the point of this thread? He gets crapped on in every GDT. He gets crapped in in the arm-chair GM thread. What new things will come up in this thread? Yeah his contract sucks, but nothing we can do about it except keep cheering for him and hope that somehow he turns it around.

 

[Calgareee]

I can think of a lot worse. But that certainly doesn’t make it a good one. He shouldn’t prevent us from making the needed signings over the next couple years and can definitely see one of Hamonic or Stone being traded instead of him to open up a spot for Andersson next offseason.

 

[Johnny Hoxville]

Brouwer has a brutal contract for his role, but he’s been way better this season than last. He’s been making good defensive plays and has been solid on the PK. I also like that he’s been being a bit of a jerk on the ice.

It ain’t pretty, but I don’t mind what I’ve seen. He’s also one of our top leaders on the team.

 

[Skobel24]

He fits that 4th line role well. The only issue is the contract. Fortunately, it won't really prevent the Flames from getting any deals done than need to be done.

 

[Lunatik]

He fits that 4th line role well. The only issue is the contract. Fortunately, it won't really prevent the Flames from getting any deals done than need to be done.

And this about sums it up, why worry about it unless it's an issue.

 

[SaintMorose]

The timing of this thread is odd, he's playing better now than any point last season in terms of getting out of his zone, getting his weight on d-men, and keeping plays alive or on net offensively.
The $ amount is maddening, but until it costs us a player it really doesn't make a difference.

 

[Ace Rimmer]

Buyout candidate? No need to in the summer of 2018, Matt Stajan and Mason Raymond both come off the books and that alone should cover Backlund's & Jankowski's raises. Summer of 2019? Still won't be urgent unless Tkachuk & Bennett have all-star seasons in 2018-19.

 

[Volica]

Quite possibly our worst UFA signing in recent memory. 4th line RW; 0 goals, 5 assists; signed for 2 more seasons after this year. Buyout candidate if we can't find a way to offload him somehow. Yikes!

He's bad, that's not even a question.
He's playing his best hockey as a Flame, and yet he's still only a borderline 4th liner. He's a guy who has literally no positive shot impact on any single player that he's played more than 20 minutes with. The only duo that can carry him, is Frolik and Backlund; and those will even feel his effect and have a reduced impact away from Chucky. Your other option is to bump Frolik; but that's also a net negative impact on the team, because you want Frolik playing 15+ minutes a night and not Brouwer.

The guy needs a puck dominant centre to carry him; we only have one of those guys.

On a team that's given UFA's bad contracts in recent years, this one is easily the worse. He's a leader on this team, I understand that is an important factor, but otherwise he's fairly useless. To note, he's Calgary's worst penalty killer by a fair margin; the only player to surrender more goals on the PK is Gio... who plays 2X more on the PK than Brouwer. In my opinion... you send him down to Stockton to try and get him more confident; you have better options, Hrivik, Klimchuk or Mangi could easily replace Brouwer in the NHL today.

 

[Mobiandi]

He's shown glimpses that make me believe something is still there. But I don't think he's working hard enough to put himself in goalscoring opportunities. He has a pretty underrated shot but how many times has he created the space to get it off?

If this is the Brouwer we see for the rest of the season, then I'm sure he won't see out the remainder of his contract here

 

[Baxterman]

It was terrible contract the moment it was signed but still lightyears better than the Wideman deal and at least unlike Hudler, he won't be a complete pile of garbage out there at the end of the deal.

He is somewhat lucky that the AHL guys haven't stepped up so he isn't keeping anyone down there that should be up or getting replaced by one of them.

Easily the worst move by Treliving so far and one that never really made any sense at all.

 

[Anglesmith]

It was terrible contract the moment it was signed but still lightyears better than the Wideman deal and at least unlike Hudler, he won't be a complete pile of garbage out there at the end of the deal.

He is somewhat lucky that the AHL guys haven't stepped up so he isn't keeping anyone down there that should be up or getting replaced by one of them.

Easily the worst move by Treliving so far and one that never really made any sense at all.

Jiri Hudler made less money and had way more production. And he had one "bad" year, in which he still had 35 points in 53 games (54 point pace). Brouwer has yet to have one good year (25 points last year and projecting to <20 this year). It's just the weirdest comparison for you to find Brouwer's contract to be better.

The Wideman contract was bad for multiple years, and carried a higher penalty during that time. Brouwer has the potential to be less harmful than that, I'll grant you.

 

[CamPopplestone]

Buyout candidate? No need to in the summer of 2018, Matt Stajan and Mason Raymond both come off the books and that alone should cover Backlund's & Jankowski's raises. Summer of 2019? Still won't be urgent unless Tkachuk & Bennett have all-star seasons in 2018-19.

Yup. I don't think Jankowski gets much yet either, I think he gets around a Ferland prove it deal, 1.75x2 at most. Backlund probably signs around 5.5.

 

[Yotes4Cup]

This was a bad contract the day that it was signed.

 

[Yung Rotini]

Don’t give players fat contracts after good playoff runs.

 

[JPeeper]

Don't think he is bought out at the end of year, as useless as he is. If he's bought out that'd also include a cap hit for the next 4 years, if he's bought out after next year it will only last for 2 years. I don't see Tre taking on a buy out cap hit (that isn't a low one mind you) for 4 years when Tkachuk will need a big raise, hopefully Bennett gets one, probably Ferland's, and other holes we'll need to fill.


And as for being "better than last year", last year he had 13 goals, this year he has 0 is obviously on pace for 0, and based on his play I honestly can see him pulling a Sheahan and not scoring this year. That is f***ing tragic. I don't care if he plays better on the 4th line, if you can't contribute even 1 goal over 25 games, you don't deserve to be in the NHL.

Getting paid $4.5 mil and can't even score 1 goal, and this f***nut gets #1 powerplay time.

 

[Lunatik]

Don't think he is bought out at the end of year, as useless as he is. If he's bought out that'd also include a cap hit for the next 4 years, if he's bought out after next year it will only last for 2 years. I don't see Tre taking on a buy out cap hit (that isn't a low one mind you) for 4 years when Tkachuk will need a big raise, hopefully Bennett gets one, probably Ferland's, and other holes we'll need to fill.


And as for being "better than last year", last year he had 13 goals, this year he has 0 is obviously on pace for 0, and based on his play I honestly can see him pulling a Sheahan and not scoring this year. That is ****ing tragic. I don't care if he plays better on the 4th line, if you can't contribute even 1 goal over 25 games, you don't deserve to be in the NHL.

Getting paid $4.5 mil and can't even score 1 goal, and this ****nut gets #1 powerplay time.

Production =/= playing better. Last year Brouwer got his points on the PP, some brief time on the top line and before he and Bennett fell off the map offensively. Brouwer has played better defensively, he has regularly made defensive plays that have saved goals. You bring up the PP time, but he has not been a consistent member of the PP unit and is seeing less than half the time he did last season. If you can't see those difference, like usual your blind hate for Brouwer is clouding your judgment. Not shocking though, I already knew you can't see past the dollar signs.

 

[Turning Mangiapanese]

Jiri Hudler made less money and had way more production. And he had one "bad" year, in which he still had 35 points in 53 games (54 point pace). Brouwer has yet to have one good year (25 points last year and projecting to <20 this year). It's just the weirdest comparison for you to find Brouwer's contract to be better.

The Wideman contract was bad for multiple years, and carried a higher penalty during that time. Brouwer has the potential to be less harmful than that, I'll grant you.

Wideman, while overpaid, did produce offensively and was a decent use of cap space during the Hartley years. He even had that one awesome year when we made the playoffs. Brouwer so far hasn't been actually good at any point, at best he's been a "not a liability" which is not good enough for $4.5M. Especially when we're in cap crunch mode and those bucks could be used elsewhere.

That being said, there's not much to be done here except hope he gets better.

 

[Ace Rimmer]

For those interested, here's the buyout calculation if the Flames go that route this summer.

$1.5 million / year over four years.

 

[JPeeper]

Fairly certain he gets bought out this off-season. In Tre's presser he mentioned the people he brought in failing and I can't see Tre going another year with Troy on the team. Forget the cap hit, it doesn't hurt us next year (unless we went all in on Tavares), he eats up 10-15 minutes a night of ice-time while doing NOTHING.

 

[Lunatik]

Flames will not be buying out Brouwer. They will give him a chance under the new coach and don't want 4 years of cap penalties.

 

[Tkachuky]

Just wait and see what new coach does with him. Maybe somehow he magically becomes respectable. Then flip at deadline... if somehow he lights it up.

 

[Unlimited Chequing]

Flames will not be buying out Brouwer. They will give him a chance under the new coach and don't want 4 years of cap penalties.

Maybe he'd do well with a coach he's had success with before *cough*Trotz*cough*

 

[1989]

Why is this an issue? Pittsburgh has an 8.7m grinder and they even made him captain of their team.

 

[Johnny Hoxville]

All Troy needs to do is park his big behind in front of the net and throw his body around below the dots. If he did that, I don’t think people would despise him the way they do. He should be a 20 goal scorer with the shot he has, problem is that he’s a very poor puck retrieval guy and not the best skater. He’s essentially a garbage man (this isn’t a knock) that can clean up feeds from the slot or rebounds. He shouldn’t be being forced to play the same game as Frolik, of course he’s going to struggle in such a system. Let him do what he’s comfortable with, essentially like forcing Brodie to play on his offside.

Hartley understood this and actually DESIGNED systems to fit his players. He didn’t say, your English now go speak Mandarin.