[Mike F]

IMO, the criticisms being leveled at this article are overblown, stemming more from who the messenger is.

Here's what I believe the heart of his argument is:

Taken on its face, the high end of the Calgary Flames roster is probably among the best in the Western Conference.

You have Johnny Gaudreau, Mark Giordano, Dougie Hamilton, TJ Brodie, the entire 3M line, Sean Monahan. The good news is that basically all those guys, with the exception of Giordano (very old) and Matthew Tkachuk (very young), are in their mid- to late-20s.

This is what you’d call a team’s “window to win” — the point at which most of a team’s big-ticket players are around the primes of their careers — but the Flames have a very serious problem. You can have a good group at the top of your lineup, but if you don’t support them at the lower end, your ability to actually win while your window is open is limited.

What, exactly, do they hope to accomplish with this group?

Point is, two or three years from now, they might all look around and realize, “Oh, we could have cobbled something together here.” Instead, there seems to be a strange lack of ambition here, which is weird given the team’s previous ‘Going For It’ culture.

I read that as: the team has an elite core that is in it's window to be challenging for the cup, but is hamstrung by some serious flaws outside of that core that management doesn't seem to be making much of an effort to solve right now. As a result, we could look back to or three years from now and see them as two or three wasted years.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that premise. No, the window won't then be slammed shut, but I don't see that point being made anywhere outside of a sensational headline.

What are those serious flaws? First:

getting it very, very wrong in net. . . .

Last year the Flames should have gotten good goaltending. Brian Elliott and Chad Johnson are two guys with very solid track records. They combined to go .910 over the course of the season, in a league in which the average netminder stopped shots at .915. They made the playoffs anyway, though just barely, and got swept out of the first round.

So the team recognized goaltending as a major flaw; it probably cost them 10 or 11 goals over the course of the season, which is the equivalent of about three points in the standings. They gain three points and maybe they avoid the Ducks in the first round, depending upon where they lost them and so on. So in response to this major flaw, their big offseason plan was to go out and get… Mike Smith and Eddie Lack?

Completely legitimate concern, IMO, and one I've brought up before: the team's success for the last couple of years was hindered by substandard to down right horrific goaltending, and management has again just put a bandaid on the wound rather that trying to really solve it. Neither Smith or Lack have put up numbers the last couple of years that make them good bets to put up contender level goaltending.

Now I know why they've gone with the bandaid solution: because they think they may have one or two guys in the system that could be the long term solution for free. But goalie prospects who have done nothing in the league really are magic beans who more often than not fail, and when they do succeed, they usually take time to come into their own.

So, it's not irrational, or being a hater, to suggest that two or three seasons from now we'll all look back and lament that the Flames didn't get the quality of goaltending they needed to really contend for a cup, just as we now look back on the last two years as (to some degree) wasted due to sup-standard goaltending.

Next flaw?

But that’s what gets into the concerns about the Flames’ depth and lack of developed young players. After the five forwards listed above, and maybe you lump in Kris Versteeg and even Micheal Ferland if you want to be charitable, the Flames have a lot of problems up front this season. They might try to make Troy Brouwer “a thing” on the top line again, but that was a disaster last time out. Matt Stajan is their No. 3 center. Sam Bennett hasn’t come along much at all. They’ll be counting on a rookie or two to chip in offensively.

Only six forwards finished with CF% of more than 50 percent last season, and one of them (Alex Chiasson) doesn’t seem like he’s coming back. Even free of context, this is a concern, but the five they have coming back are the five “core” guys listed above. That’s got to be seen as a big issue.

After all, what can you expect out of Stajan, offensively? How many goals do Freddie Hamilton and Curtis Lazar give you if they’re everyday players? Can Sam Bennett find some way to clear 30 points again, let alone 40? And they certainly didn’t add any offense this summer, instead making their big move to trade for Travis Hamonic, who could excel in a middle-pairing role. But that’s not really what they needed here.

The Flames were 17th in scoring last season, and I think it's bang on to be concerned that they did very little to address the holes up front in the organization as a whole: there are no RW in the organization that I consider current Top 6 guys or blue chip prospects. Ferland comes closest, as I love his combination of size, footspeed, and hands, but thus far he hasn't shown the ability to put it all together for more than spurts. I do think Bennett could absolutely be that guy day one of camp if they moved him to the right side, but if they're adamant on keeping him as a centre, I don't think it's wrong to be worried about seeing a sudden offensive uptick if he's played behind Monahan and Backlund, and with... Brouwer? Lazar? Versteeg? as his everyday wingers.

What other player in the entire organization looks to be a future scorer for the Flames? I still like Jankowski, but not as a big scorer at the NHL level.

Instead of addressing this, Treliving spent a lot of assets to add Hamonic and re-sign Stone. I really like Hamonic, and think Stone could be really solid on the third pairing, but defense was the Flames biggest area of strength, with three legitimate 1st pairing guys in the NHL already, and much more depth in the organization (Kulak, Andersson, Kylington, Valimaki, Fox) than at forward.

So, it's not irrational, or being a hater, to suggest that two or three seasons from now we'll all look back and lament that the Flames didn't supplement the big 5 up front with the supporting scoring they needed to really contend for a cup.

Now, could things turn out fabulously? Absolutely! Bennett could flourish in whatever position he is played. Ferland could break out as a full time top line RW. Smith could re-find his 2011-12 form and stay healthy.

But if you look at this team as having an elite core, this team is riding too much on hope going into this season rather that legitimate expectation based on proven evidence. And with management not really taking strides going into this year to address the legitimate holes, it's not irrational to worry that "two or three years from now, they might all look around and realize, “Oh, we could have cobbled something [great] together here.”