canada cant even run hockey teams anymore. approaching FAILED STATE status

2016 Treseason Preview - Calgary Flames



2015-16 Team Stats (League-wide):

Record: 35-40-7 (26th Place)
5v5 CF%: 48.1 (21st Place)
GF/60: 2.75 (9th Place)
GA/60: 3.07 (30th Place)
PP%: 17.0% (22nd Place)
PK%: 75.5% (30th Place)

Impending UFA's (4): Jonas Hiller, Karri Ramo, Niklas Backstrom, Jakub Nakladal

Impending RFA's (14): Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Joe Colborne, Josh Jooris, Derek Grant, Drew Shore, Turner Elson, Joni Ortio, Tyler Wotherspoon, Freddie Hamilton, Kenny Agostino, Bryce van Brabant, Bill Arnold, Kevin Poulin

Welcome to the Pro System: Mark Jankowski (F - Providence College); Andrew Mangiapane (F - Barrie Colts); Rasmus Andersson (D - Barrie Colts)

What Went Wrong?



1. Regression to the ****in' Mean: Pretty obvious, and just about everyone said it last summer - this team rode unsustainable percentages in their improbable run to the Pacific Division Finals last year, and the house of cards was bound to come crashing down barring major changes. Although some results seemed to represent a bit too harsh of a correction (see: Calgary's historically awful special teams, more on that in a minute), this was, once again, a bottom third possession team at even strength, the 4th consecutive year under Bob Hartley that the Flames have found themselves in that tier. There was reason for optimism after two universally applauded acquisitions in Dougie Hamilton and Michael Frolik last summer, but the stretch-and-gun system Hartley so adamantly stuck to through the first half of the season was stifled time and time again by opponents who were no longer fooled. Despite internal improvements and external additions, the Flames are still fighting an uphill battle by playing an archaic system that's far too easily taken advantage of.



2. Jesus Saves, Flames Tenders Don't: Even if this team found themselves on the short end of the possession stick on far too many nights, at no point in the season were the Flames ever able to lean on the last line of defense for support. In what can only be described as a three-headed monster of a trainwreck, the collective talents of Jonas Hiller, Karri Ramo & Joni Ortio (with a late-season cameo from Niklas Backstrom) combined to post a league-worst .893 SV% in all situations over the season (also a league-worst .911 SV% at evens, but that shouldn't be a surprise). It's hard enough to win in this league at the best of times, but surrendering a steady stream of beachballs will flat out sewer any playoff chances you have. Thankfully - or mercifully - the Flames have the opportunity to walk away from all three (or four); Hiller, Ramo and Backstrom are all UFA's with virtually no possible opportunity to return - as confirmed by Brad Treliving - while Ortio's an RFA who has almost zero leverage in negotiations, given his career numbers. However, with Jon Gillies at least one year away and no other NHL-ready options internally, Treliving will have to improve externally if the Flames have any chance to compete in 2016-17.



3. Very Special Teams: Calgary's late-season goalscoring surge somewhat obscures just how awful the Flames' special teams units truly were, but consider this - well into midway through the season, the Flames were outpacing the 1974-75 Washington Capitals for worst combined special teams output in league history; with a 12.9% PP and 71.34% PK, no team in the history of the game epitomized special teams futility quite like that Capitals trainwreck...and the Flames were neck n' neck with 'em for over half a year. It's almost nonsensical - after all, the Flames employ the league's 8th highest scorer in Johnny Gaudreau (78 Pts, personal high), another perennial 60+ point man in Sean Monahan and the league's former best-kept secret Mark Giordano on the blueline (who, with 21 goals, became the first Flames blueliner since Dion Phaneuf to crack the 20 mark, and only the 2nd since Al MacInnis did so in 1993-94). Still, despite a fair share of offensive talent, the Flames simply could not bulge the twine consistently on the PP, while the PK remained an abhorrent travesty all season long. This simply cannot continue if the Flames are to regain ground in an ever competitive Western Conference.

What Needs To Happen?



1. Re-sign Gaudreau & Monahan ASAP: The first step is without question the most important step of the offseason - Treliving needs to establish cost certainty with his two franchise pillars as quickly as possible, lest he leave reasonable doubt over Calgary's budget structure heading into July 1st. Gaudreau is a lock to bypass his bridge deal and look for an 8-year max extension (at a figure that almost certainly cracks $7M/yr), while Monahan's almost certain to settle for a Barkov-esque extension of his own at around $6M/yr; even still, the sooner they get done, the better for Treliving's chances of improving the roster appreciably through the UFA & trade market channels.



2. Find a Starting Goalie: We're not even talking about a top tier goalie here...just please, for the love of Zalapski, find a capable, reliable, NHL-calibre starting goaltender prior to the beginning of October. The second the above aforementioned extensions are signed, the clock immediately begins ticking on Calgary's window; there is no more margin for error in the form of wasted seasons. The UFA market isn't plentiful with options, but neither is the list of open destinations for starters. A logical fit for the Flames seems to be James Reimer, who would certainly relish the opportunity to grasp the starter's reins from the get-go of a season. Aside from that option, the trade channel might represent Treliving's best opportunity to land a starter.



3. Clear The Bad Money: This paragraph could have just as easily been devoted to finding a top six right winger, but the ability to do so is severely hampered by Calgary's troublesome contracts. While the Flames appeared to have dodged a potentially costly bullet by divesting themselves of Kris Russell, the blueline still pays out far too much money for suboptimal options - the combined AAV's of Deryk Engelland, Ladislav Smid and Dennis Wideman equal $12.7M - and the contracts of Matt Stajan, Brandon Bollig and Lance Bouma represent a further $6.6M in possession-negative anchors up front (an entire 4th line of ineptitude, God bless Matty though ). That's almost $20 Million committed to players who would seem to be pushed into the periphery by improvements on a Cup-contending roster. As noted above, the clock starts ticking on the window the second Gaudreau and Monahan start getting paid at market value; shedding himself of undesirable salaries will be crucial for Treliving if he's to push the Flames towards true contender status.

Geddy's Dreams for the Summer



1. Pick 3rd Overall in the Draft: I'm not greedy. I'm not asking for Matthews or Laine. But I am asking, hoping and praying for Jesse Puljujarvi to pull on a Flames sweater for the next decade plus. Never has a potential Flames prospect filled in so many requisite boxes for the organization quite like Puljujarvi, who would be a top six right winger in the league immediately, run the RH-on-the-left-side wheelhouse on Calgary's PP1 and add a sorely needed possession-driving & goal-scoring element to Calgary's roster upon arrival. He solves so many problems for this lineup, it's almost too painful to think of a scenario where he doesn't end up a Flame. My heart can't take it.



2. Complete the Top 4 on the Blueline: Dougie Hamilton was undoubtedly the coup of the offseason, even if his first half performance made the deal look like a wash at best. But Dougie's boxcar & possession numbers took a spike immediately upon Russell's departure to Dallas (what a surprise!), and it certainly seems like you can pencil in his name alongside Giordano and Brodie as bona fide top four blueliners at this level. But who else steps in to assume the final spot in the quad? While promising young options exist internally (Jyrki Jokipakka, Brett Kulak, Tyler Wotherspoon, Rasumus Andersson, Oliver Kylington), and Tre's best diamond-in-the-rough find Jakub Nakladal seems to be legit, there's still no lock top four option in the immediacy within that group. This will most likely have to happen via trade - impeding RFA and hometown boy Matt Dumba, along with confirmed trade block blue chipper Travis Hamonic, should be at the top of Treliving's shopping list. If either one of those young righty blueliners joined an existing corps of Giordano-Brodie-Hamilton-Nakladal-Jokipakka, you'd arguably be looking at the league's best and most complete D-corps, period.



3. Land One More Top Six Scoring Threat: Yes, this would be on top of drafting Jesse, and perhaps given the above priority, and the impeding cap hazards, this might appear unrealistic...but the truth of the matter is, Calgary's still at least two top six pieces away from really making noise against the big boys in the West. I don't know what the packages truly look like for someone of Jonathan Drouin's ilk, and I don't know how feasible it is to look at plucking an RFA stud like Brayden Schenn out of a difficult-yet-workable cap situation elsewhere, but somewhere in Holland Landing, Sam Bennett is yearning for his own scoring counterpart to shoulder the creative load over his soon-to-be 20 mins/night. Thankfully, with a much better stocked prospect pipeline at his disposal, along with three 2nd round picks (one of which is a potential 1st) heading into the 2016 Draft, Treliving has his fair share of capital with which to work.

*BONUS DREAM - GET THE **** AWAY FROM COLBORNE AT ALL COSTS*

*DOUBLE BONUS DREAM - SEND HARTLEY BACK TO SWITZERLAND ASAP*

THE BEST POSSIBLE YET STILL SOMEWHAT REALISTIC LINEUP

Gaudreau ($7M) - Monahan ($6M) - Puljujarvi ($925K)
Ferland ($825K) - Bennett ($925K) - Jooris ($1M)
Shinkaruk ($863K) - Backlund ($3.575M) - Frolik ($4.3M)
Poirier ($863K) - Grant ($850K) - Hathaway ($690K)

Giordano ($6.75M) - Hamonic ($3.857M)
Brodie ($4.65M) - Hamilton ($5.75M)
Jokipakka ($900K) - Nakladal ($1M)

Reimer ($4.5M)
Ortio ($900K)

Total Cap Hit (20 Players): $56.123 Million

(First off, obviously payroll wouldn't come in this low, but I'd do my best to try. I'd buy out Wideman at an additional $2M AAV hit this year and next, keep Raymond in the AHL, either scratch Bollig or demote him as well, flip Bouma, try to flip Colborne in a package before walking away from his arb award, LTIR Smid or hope he retires *wink wink*, and do my best to extol the virtues of a true veteran and absolute beauty in Matt Stajan, in the hopes that I could free myself of his $3.125M/yr cap hit over the next two seasons, in favour of a guy who's undoubtedly not as good of a person as Matty but also undoubtedly not as much of a possession drag as Matty. Again, )

This team is close. Depending on how much Tre can get done this summer, perhaps quite close. It's an outstanding test for one of the game's bright young executives, and for the first time in recent memory as a Flames fan, I can honestly say I think we have the right man in charge.

GFG

Yours in season reviews,

Geddy

Whats up with Nakladal Geddy? You sound pretty high on him, he's an UFA but he refused to go to WCH on the recommendation of Calgary doctors, which I guess means he's likely to resign

Btw Flyers dont have cap issues for next year, they wont have any problems paying Schenn

Leafs sign Rielly and Kadri to 6-year contracts. $ still unknown. Hopefully over $6 million AAV for each.

Kadri 4.5m AAV
Rielly 5m

Good deals for the Leafs

Kadri seems like a steal.

Nakladal picked up an ankle injury in the last week of the season, so I doubt he would've been available anyway.

Really like Jakub's game. He is a terrific puck mover and finds outlets consistently; not the most fleet of foot but exhibits sound positional awareness and consistently takes good angles in down-low pursuit & defending off the rush. He's also a big boy and played with some snarl when appropriate - that still matters to me. He was advertised as more of a stay-at-home type but I'm not sure that's entirely accurate - he was very willing to jump into the rush over his last 20 GP's and was very adept at taking open ice when presented to him in possession. And he has an absolute cannon that needs more PP time next year (which also makes Wideman redundant, hence my wishes he's bought out instead of sheltered for one last year).

The hard data supports the assessment as well; among eligible rookies, no one put up a better RelCF than Jakub's +5.3% over 27 GP. All situations CF was 53.6% and he sat around 58% SCF at evens. Mind you, he wasn't exactly thrown into the deep end (averaged only 14 mins/night), but it's pretty clear he can play at this level at the bare minimum, and he almost certainly thrives in a bottom pairing role next year.

Big lad? Check. Moves the puck? Check. Offensive upside? Check. Most importantly, cost effective? Check. All indications point to mutual interest, so I hope Tre doesn't pull a repeat of the Schlemko walkaway from last year and actually brings him back.

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1. how are you just getting Hamonic btw? i would assume his value is very high (GOCB), and it'd be a seller's market, especially with that contract
2. Jooris on the 2nd line with Ferklund huh?
3. not greedy jumping from 5th to 3rd huh?
4. backup plan if you miss on Reimer?

yep

Rielly not so much, unless he learned how to defend in the last couple months

Friend says Kadri is better than any Habs centre. I offer him points bet for next year. Kadri vs Galchenyuk. He wants 20 point cushion. People need to put money where mouth is.

lol 20 point cushion, but kadri probably won't have Pacioretty on his side next year

Kadri is the one that is "OK". Reilly is a steal at almost any price.

1. Praying for a Dallas WCF trip!

Flames have 4 picks in the top 60 this year, 9 in total, and a stable of A/B-grade blueliners in the system who are actually on the cusp; Kulak can (and should) definitely play in The Show next year, Wotherspoon probably can, Andersson definitely will and both Kylington & Hickey almost certainly will.

With one of those kids and a late 1st + one of the 2nds, you're close IMO. Problem is finding the piece up front to complete the package, which we don't really have. But I don't think Hamonic's return is as big as we originally thought - he has a limited market to begin with, and given recent trade comparables (Boston's return for Hamilton immediately comes to mind, although RFA status played into that quite a bit), I'm not sure Snow gets his true asking price.

A kid can dream. I do think Dumba is the more likely target, based on price.

2. Not ideal, but Josh is still one of the better possession drivers on this team (relatively speaking, especially when he's not playing with plugs) and the RW options are scarce in the system.

Aesthetically, the Ferland-Bennett-Jooris line does a lot of things well that make me think they could work out as a middle six unit - tenacious forecheckers, effective in the cycle, much better puckhandlers than they're given credit for and they don't just float to the perimeter off the rush; Ferland especially has the kind of outside-in game (or at least the tools) that's conducive to generating high danger chances at this level, IMO. Their biggest hurdle is finishing...and I'm not sure either winger has the raw shooting talent to be a true top six scoring threat. Still, beggars can't be choosers for now, and if the roster is primarily constructed from within, I like the idea of sheltering Shinkaruk with the Backlund-Frolik possession-driving superduo - and perhaps helping out their total offensive output too - instead of throwing him with Bennett and expecting big boy results right away.

One thing I definitely expect to see next year: Backlund and Frolik will be used as a traditional 2nd line far more frequently, because this team isn't deep enough to Malhotra them in deployment just yet.

3. Rungood one time. But really, how this team managed to pull themselves out of a bottom three finish this year is just so goddamn frustrating, there are no words.

However, if there ever was a year to bink a lottery win, this would be it.

4. Honestly don't know. Obviously Tre will inquire re: Freddie Andersen, but I just don't see any way he stays in the division.

You're probably looking at a buy-low trade as recourse. Wouldn't be surprised at all if Bernier is Calgary's starting tender in October, provided Lou still has some space to absorb a bad contract in the process (Stajan? Engelland? Smid if LTIR eligible?).

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Both Kadri and Rielly represent really good value. Rielly has the much higher relative ceiling, but it's not all that far-fetched to envision a scenario where Kadri's the nominal 3C on a very deep team.

Given cap inflation - our dollar will recover to a degree - both those deals will look great when the Leafs are contending again.

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Nice to have you back btw Geddy! Usually a departure or return by you signifies some sort of lady drama in your life. So are you just holding back or what?

Claude staying on

edit. Kevan Miller too. **** this

^ that is amazing. LOLOLOL

lol kadri only got a measly 45 points this year, ur friend is the worst.

Habs centers had a whopping 54 and 56 pts this year both in 82 games. Kadri played in 76 games and this was his first year playing 1C. Don't see how the "friend" is really that far off, although Galchenyuk is clearly a better player to my mind. Probably a 10 pt cushion would be the proper line.

Kadri TOI was 2 mins more per game. 76 games @ 2 mins = 2 games, 16 mins, which more than makes up for 6 extra games. Galchenyuk only played 1C for the last month or so and dominated. He was mostly a 2nd winger cause Fat Mike is Fat Mike.

also Galchenyuk gets to play with Pacioretty & Subban while Kadri is playing with Soshnikov & Hunwick

They had to be better then average to go on that incredible run to make the playoffs last year. How none of that carried over to this season is puzzling but the coach has to pay for that and he did. Cameron didn't have the team playing close to its potential. They also need Captain Karlsson to play so ****en defence or trade him for a couple 20 goal scorers. I am soooo happy for Captain K and his banner year, but another Norris trophy doesn't mean **** to me if they don't make the playoffs.

Also you pointing that their stats are not good.....no **** if their stats were good then they would be playing well and in the playoffs.

Hot take alert

That 2016 NHL Entry Draft wiki tilts me because it's still wrong - NJ has Ottawa's 3rd round pick this year. It was also reported wrong on NHL.com so that's why it's still wrong on there.

Nice writeup Geddy, I can't say I watched the Flames much this season but yeah a lot's got to change there. Stajan should probably just be bought out. I also don't see how they get rid of Wideman.