This is the year for the Flames to prove they can graduate prospects from the AHL

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by Five-hole

Lots in your post, thanks for the thoughtful response, but I wanted to address this first.

Is it? I think the GM's job is to ensure the team is taking whatever strides are necessary to be a cup-contending team more often than not. No team can contend for the cup year in, year out. Detroit made the playoffs for 25 straight years, and a good portion of that pre-dated the salary cap and isn't really relevant to the current discussion, but they haven't been a cup contender since they last won it in '08 and re-appeared in the finals the year after.

You don't always ice the best possible team this year, because sports teams evolve over time. VGK is a great example right now. Should GMGM be icing the best possible team this year? Or should he be trying to ice the best possible team in 4 years time? Or 7 years time? I can tell you that icing the best possible team now means the best possible teams 4 or 7 years down the line are significantly worse. Further, the best possible team now is significantly worse than the best possible team in 4 years, or 7 years, because you lose out on the possibility to pick up some elite or even generational talent in the draft.

In my opinion, categorically preferring veterans who are better hockey players right now to rookies who may be worse now but may be better in the future:

1) Stunts the growth of all the organization's prospects, as hope is an essential part of any human being's career;

2) Stunts the maximum upside of a team's competitiveness by preferring known commodities to riskier prospects who could become very good or even elite players;

3) Stunts the maximum upside of a team's competitiveness because the roster is occupied by vets (especially UFA-signed vets) making more than young players who can fulfill a similar function;

4) Strips assets from your organization as you trade futures for short-term fixes;

5) Plugs one of the only true asset value pipelines into the organization, as you will never have rookies making vets expendable to be traded for assets, and you diminish your overall prospect value, thereby diminishing the value they can recoup in trade if you have too many.

All of this, in exchange for:

1) More reliable competitiveness from established vets on a short-term basis.

Great teams need a mix of both, but usually the injection of reliable vets comes after establishing an excellent asset core of homegrown assets. There is still time to do that, but the time is now. Our asset base pre-Feaster was atrocious, and it's taken this long to build a stable of prospects who have a legitimate shot at playing in the NHL. It's now time to reap the rewards of that process, not to continue plugging holes to be competitive.

All fair points.

Personally, I believe there is a very, very tricky balance to find between playing vets vs prospects.

How many wins per season or spots in the league standings are you prepared to trade in exchange for prospect development at the NHL level over icing the best possible team?

Let's try to quantify.

Personally, I would favour icing a veteran team more if it meant home ice advantage in the playoffs. And that could come down to 4-6 points. Not much margin for error.

Let's not take our eyes off the prize.

As other posters have mentioned in other threads. The Flames will have injuries. Kids will get their chance. If a prospect outplays a vet, he will force the Flames into making a move. There's no need to force a prospect into an NHL role for the sake of it.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.

This is a great point. But I do think it has one additional perspective: a coach who came from the AHL would be more willing to accept a mistake from this AHL-promoted player. I think a big part of playing rookies is trust: NHL coaches appear to prefer seeing a mistake from a player they're familiar with rather than one they're new to. Case in point, Hartley would bench rookies in a split second after the smallest shortcoming.

It's human nature, but I see it a lot on the ice.

Tampa Bay also had some success after promoting Jon Cooper from the AHL. He played a lot of their younger guys that he had on the farm. Granted I think some of the young guys in Pittsburgh and Tampa have proven to be quite good. So I wouldn't blindly think that an AHL coach playing his AHL players will sustain long term.

But there is something to giving younger players some more opportunity. In both Tampa and Pittsburgh there still were veteran's to compete with and help the young guys. Whereas in Colorado or Edmonton recently young players have failed when just handed opportunity without any sort of veteran safety guard.

[Flame19,289]

Good thread and a solid OP!

The Flames' more recent AHL-graduation rate looks poor, at least in part, due to the fact that we've been fortunate to have a few prospects that have made the jump to the NHL without the need of AHL-seasoning.

Monahan, Gaudreau, Bennett, and Tkachuk all skipped the AHL tour-of-duty thanks to good draft position and solid pre-draft scouting (and probably a bit of luck).

That's not to say that the Flames' AHL-graduation rate isn't something that we need to be concerned about. I'm just saying that perhaps it's not as serious an issue when factoring in the players on the roster that were NHL-ready without time in the AHL.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

I personally believe that Vegas is doing a terrible job of franchise building, but I guess I'm in the minority on that one. You have to give paying fans a reason to show up, even if that means you're an untalented, but plucky team with some key veterans to stem the tide until the rookies are ready for a more prominent role. I don't subscribe to the idea of tanking for picks because as we saw with Buffalo in McDavid's draft year, they tanked harder than anyone for him and ended up with Eichel instead. Not a bad consolation prize, but they're further behind in their team build because they missed on him and had poor depth in the organization due to tanking.

Why would you suggest that Buffalo has poor depth due to tanking?

They flipped Neuvrith and Enroth for picks, they traded for an injured Evander Kane, which for them was an upgrade in future value.

They didn't really lose anything in that tanking year, and then got better the year after when Kane got healthy and they snagged Eichel.

I would argue that they would be so much further behind if they didn't embrace the tank, and still tried to win games with Myers and their goalies, and of course, lose out on Eichel in the end.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

I think a strong portion of the of the Penguins' success the last two years has been that their AHL coach was promoted to the NHL mid-season - a coach who intimately knew the capabilities of AHL players like Murray, Sheary, Dumoulin, Rust, etc from the minor leagues and was willing to give them opportunities we could not have fathomed under the previous coach - opportunities ahead of established veterans like Fleury, Kunitz, Lovejoy, etc. Sounds crazy in retrospect, but look at how much of their farm team was promoted in December/January 2016...

It's worth keeping in mind the age of those players when those call-ups to the NHL were made in 2016: Murray 22, Sheary 23, Dumoulin 24, Rust 24.

The problem with the Flames is their prospects in that age range (22-24) have either busted (Arnold, Sieloff), been traded away (Baertschi, Granlund), or made it into the NHL early (Gaudreau, Monahan).

Poirier, Klimchuk, and Wotherspoon are just entering the age when you would expect them to be challenging for a spot on the NHL roster. Poirier's career has been derailed by off-ice issues, Klimchuk is made of glass, and Wotherspoon hasn't shown much in the call-ups he's had. Maybe he or Kulak can make the jump this season.

[cannon7]

This is a critical year for Kulak and Wotherspoon, who are arguably on that cusp of being overripe. If they can't outplay a Bartkowski then they don't belong in the NHL. But there are things out of their control, like if Andersson has an excellent camp and steals the #6 spot then the organization has to decide whether to keep a Kulak/Wotherspoon in the NHL as a #7 or keep Bartkowski up to sit in the press box. I've said it before, but I think Kulak/Wotherspoon top out as bottom pairing guys who can provide steady defense but are limited in the offensive zone. Kulak is above-average at defensive positioning and is excellent at clogging up passing lanes. Wotherspoon is arguably more rounded as he's average at everything but not exceptional at anything. I'd prefer both of them in a #6 role over Bartkowski, but Andersson has a much higher ceiling than both of them.

Upfront this is Jankowski and Lazar's year to prove themselves. I am confident that Jankowski will be able to slot right in, as his defensive game is top-notch. Only question there is where he tops out offensively. Lazar is more of a question mark to me, but pairing him with a guy like Bennett might be just what the doctor ordered for both. I'm kind of liking the idea of a Bennett-Jankowski -Lazar line, it's young and would need to be protected somewhat, but I prefer Bennett on the wing.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

All fair points.

Personally, I believe there is a very, very tricky balance to find between playing vets vs prospects.

How many wins per season or spots in the league standings are you prepared to trade in exchange for prospect development at the NHL level over icing the best possible team?

Let's try to quantify.

Personally, I would favour icing a veteran team more if it meant home ice advantage in the playoffs. And that could come down to 4-6 points. Not much margin for error.

I would favor icing a veteran team if the veteran team would become the fabled "stanley cup contender" rather than just making the playoffs.

That means that the veterans are good enough to win the division/president's trophy. If your veterans are not capable of top 2 in conference/top 5 league, then play your prospects (and hope that your prospects become the veterans that will be capable of top2/top5).

To quantify, I'd say that if your veterans provides your team with 10-15 points in the standings above your prospects, then you should play your veterans.

Basically you would play a Giordano over Andersson, but probably not a Stone over Andersson, and definitely not Bartkowski over Andersson.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

But the reality is far more players have had their development ruined by rushing them into the NHL than by keeping them in the AHL too long.

Completely disagree with this. Very seldom do players get rushed to the NHL. Far too often players get pigeon holed based on perceptions rather than opportunity. dobbles pretty much nailed the head-to-head opportunity issue, especially the contract aspect. I think too many players end up getting caught in the numbers game and end up being over-cooked, which is never a good thing (Seriously, such a bad philosophy. Like, does anyone really enjoy over-cooked food, unless you have a predilection to drowning your steak with ketchup?).

The biggest thing with development is to keep players challenged and don't give them a chance to plateau. Leaving a player in the minors too long creates a minor league player. It is easier to observe in baseball, as players work through the various levels (rookie ball to triple A), but the intent is to keep moving the player to greater challenges and not allow them to become comfortable at a level until they hit the bigs. I think the Flames have been way too comfortable in allowing players to plateau instead of challenging them and let them learn at the NHL level. You don't learn to deal with the speed of the NHL in the AHL. You don't learn to make better decisions playing against inferior competition. Yes, there is a need for the AHL, and giving players learning opportunities, but to learn how to play against the best you need to play against the best. You don't earn a graduate degree by taking more 100-200 level classes!

[Flames Draft Watcher]

I actually think we're in a great position to graduate prospects on defense in the next few years.

1. Sure there's 5 veteran dmen but they are unlikely to be healthy all the time. This opens 1-2 more spots then you'd think if you analyze the theoretical healthy lineup
2. Bartkowski isn't really stopping anyone from winning a 6/7 role ahead of him
3. There was no point rushing guys just to satisfy a fan craving. Flames seem pretty happy that Kulak split time between the AHL login top minutes and bottom pair minutes in the NHL. Seems like they think that was a positive year of development for him. Guys like Andersson and Kylington are still inexperienced in pro and IMO it would have been rushing them for them to step in any sooner. I think Kulak and Wotherspoon are at the point where they should be making the jump. I think Kylington is nowhere near ready. I think Andersson is getting close but probably needs a year like Kulak had last year where he sees some NHL time but also plays a bunch in the AHL logging top minutes

Overall I think the graduation from the minors issue is a bit overblown. IMO it looks like more of an issue than it is because we've drafted high and thus our best prospects step right in. This works against the AHLers because most teams will only go with a certain amount of youngsters. Sometimes when people are crying out for more farmhands up front they are ignoring just how young we've been up front the past few years.

That said I do think some prospects up front will get a chance too this season. Jankowski has a strong chance of graduating. I think this is a real prove something year for Shinkaruk. Whether Poirier has salvaged his career remains to be seen (not sure we should be blaming Flames drafting/development for personal issues). Klimchuk actually looks back on track after some injury issues.

Another thing that is misleading IMO is that we've had prospects who step right in away versus prospects on a more classic 5-6 years after being drafted timeframe. The guys who step in make the guys on classic development curves look bad. It's not unusual for guys to take 5-6 years to make the an impact in the NHL since being drafted. So this suggests that some of our 2013 class of Monahan, Shinkaruk, Poirier, Klimchuk, Lazar may only just be readying maturation this year or next. Basically the longer term prospects from when Feaster started our rebuild should only just be starting to be ripe. I'd expect to see some injury callous this year for Foo, Klimchuk, Shinkaruk, Pribyl, etc

[Jiri Hrdina]

Opportunities need to be provided, and when they are, it is then on the player to take those opportunities.
Opportunities include
- Every training camp
- Every exhibition game
- Every practice
- Every AHL practice
- Every AHL game

Trianing camp is always interesting to me. Tyler Wotherspoon has had poor camps a couple years in a row where there was a potential spot to win.

The opportunities are not limitless.
I truly both those capable and who want it bad enough push themselves to the front. Those that don't - don't.

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by Regorium

I would favor icing a veteran team if the veteran team would become the fabled "stanley cup contender" rather than just making the playoffs.

That means that the veterans are good enough to win the division/president's trophy. If your veterans are not capable of top 2 in conference/top 5 league, then play your prospects (and hope that your prospects become the veterans that will be capable of top2/top5).

To quantify, I'd say that if your veterans provides your team with 10-15 points in the standings above your prospects, then you should play your veterans.

Basically you would play a Giordano over Andersson, but probably not a Stone over Andersson, and definitely not Bartkowski over Andersson.

1. No one would have considered Nashville to be "good enough to win the President's trophy", so I think you're setting the bar too high.

2. Perhaps I misunderstand you. A 10-15 point swing could easily be the difference between playoffs vs no playoffs. Are you really saying you would sacrifice (at this point in the Flames rebuild) a playoff spot in favour of playing more prospects?

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by New Era

Completely disagree with this. Very seldom do players get rushed to the NHL. Far too often players get pigeon holed based on perceptions rather than opportunity. dobbles pretty much nailed the head-to-head opportunity issue, especially the contract aspect. I think too many players end up getting caught in the numbers game and end up being over-cooked, which is never a good thing (Seriously, such a bad philosophy. Like, does anyone really enjoy over-cooked food, unless you have a predilection to drowning your steak with ketchup?).

So, how rampant a problem is this? You present the "overcooked" prospect scenario as a league-wide problem, and this would then suggest that there are dozens of bonafide NHL prospects who have been ruined or stunted by their organization's refusal to allow them to develop. please tell me who all these prospects are.

I will say that there is a grain of truth to what you are arguing, but it is something that will literally always be a problem, and it is this: players not only need to be incredibly good to carve out a NHL career, they must also be very lucky. I don't doubt that there will always be players in the AHL who could play in the NHL, but there will never be enough open roster spots to satisfy every individual need. Every team will undoubtedly fail to develop all their prospects to their full potential, but that is because there is simply not the space and time to do so. And here is where I do not believe this is a significant problem: the best players will always play, and the difference of the impact made by those players who are less fortunate and those who are mores is fairly negligible. What we are talking about here is the missed opportunity to develop more bottom line, bottom pairing players.

[calumniate]

This is the time of year where it seems almost impossible to fit everyone on a roster. But after the rookie camp and main camp, things tend to fall into place. Bennett, Monahan, Gaudreau and Tkachuk all made it in fairly quickly. Bouma was sent off..

Things will start making a lot more sense come the beginning of October. Right now it looks like a logjam though.. it always does this time of year!

[Roof-Daddy]

Just looking at past graduates..

10/11 - Backlund
11/12 - Brodie
12/13 -
13/14 - Monahan / Bouma
14/15 - Gaudreau
15/16 - Bennett / Ferland
16/17 - Tkachuk


8 guys graduated in the last 7 seasons, and 6 in the last 4 seasons since the 'rebuild' started.

Only Bouma has moved on, and the rest are high impact NHLers, or at the very least solid top 9 forwards (Bennett/Ferland)

Other NHLers who moved on for various reasons that came through the Flames system: Byron, Baertschi, Granlund

So 11 guys overall in 7 seasons. Not terrible I guess, although 3 of those were top 6 picks who stepped right in.

Moving forward, I expect no less than 2 more guys to graduate this season as well, with Jankowski and Kulak as the front runners IMO. Foo, Wotherspoon and a rejuvenated Poirier also might make a run at it. Hathaway also likely makes the jump, but more as a 4th line / 13th forward. So really, it's not unlikely that we see as many as 4 players graduate to full time NHLers this season, with a couple of those as more of depth type players.

I also think Andersson gets a good chunk of games because Hamilton, Hamonic and Stone won't all be healthy all season long, and Rasmus is the top right shot D prospect who will likely get the call each and every time one of the top 3 NHL guys has to sit out for a game or two...or more.

I think the farm is bursting with potential NHL talent right now. Not all will make it, but IMO several of them will over the next 2-3 seasons, which I believe is a big reason why Tre was so willing to move as many draft picks as he did.

Over the next 2-3 seasons I could realistically see the following graduate to the NHL:

Jankowski
Foo
One of Andersson/Valimaki/Fox
One of Poirier/Klimchuk/Shinkaruk
One of Kulak/Wotherpsoon/Kylington
One of Rittich/Gillies/Parsons/McDonald
One of Mangiapane/Dube

[Enoch Root]

Lots of good points in the thread. A couple generic comments I would like to make:

1) what the Flames did 10 or 20 years ago is irrelevant - different management, different coach, different players. Yes, the Flames have a less than stellar track record with prospects. However, that is entirely irrelevant with respect to the current players. Let's keep the discussion to what is actually going on today

2) With respect to the Chicago / Detroit discussion, I believe it is important to keep in mind where a team is at in their growth cycle, before just unilaterally saying that over-ripening or giving opportunities quicker is a better strategy. If you look at Chicago, they have a veteran, talent-laden lineup - it is MUCH easier in that situation to give a job to a kid and control their exposure. The other end of the spectrum is Edmonton - without a solid core of vets, throwing kids into the fray can kill them. It all depends on the make-up of the team, and the role given to the player.

Taking that to the Flames, as the team matures, they will be in a much better position to plug kids into situations than they have been in the past. I think we saw that last year with Tkachuk, and we might see it this year with Jankowski. Compare that to Bennett, who is learning how to be a C on the fly - MUCH more difficult.

I think the issue is far more complex than a simple: give them opportunities vs over-ripen them debate. It depends on the player, it depends on the role, and it depends on the nature of the team at the time.

[Split98]

One of those rare threads where I agree with almost everything said - even polar opposites.

IMO, these are the things that are set:

Gaudreau - Monahan
Tkachuk - Backlund - Frolik

Giordano - Hamilton

Literally everything else is up in the air.

could light it up in pre-season. I'm hoping that if something like this happens, it's put on the rest of the team to find their place.

The veterans are here and pretty confident they will return to their spot, but if Poirier plays great with Gaudreau & Monahan, it's up to Ferland to outplay him or play on a line that fits or if Bennett - Jankowski - Brouwer light it up it's up to the rest of the team to find their place.

We look to be rolling 3 forward lines that can score, and one with grit. The 4th line looks pretty up in the air on who that'll be. Maybe Hathaway & Ferland take over and start playing an hard and fast game to make a bruising 4th line so a spot at center opens up for someone to compliment that game. Maybe it's still Stajan. I think a line's identity, established from well working pairs is a good strategy to form an identity, but also allow players to earn a way onto the roster.

I'd love to see something like this:

1st: Scoring - Monahan & Gaudreau
2nd: Responsible - Backlund & Frolik feat. Tkachuk
3rd: Pesky scoring - Lots of options, but no pair that has owned it
4th: Peskiest - Lots of options, but no pair that has owned it

Looking at what Tkachuk did last year. He played great with a proven pair in Backlund & Frolik and solidified his spot in the NHL (and earned praise as one of the best lines in hockey). He brought a pesky edge to a very responsible line, but showed he could play very responsibly himself. That helped open up far more scoring opportunities for that line and Tkachuk's scrums really seemed to bring Backlund & Frolik into the game at times. Anytime they looked a little listless, you could count on a scrum to get them right back into it. The rest of the lines need that, and it's open to the prospects to bring their element to a line.

What I hope is that we're more willing to ship a vet when they've lost a spot. I'm hoping Bouma's departure is a signal of that.

[SeanCharles]

I'm fairly excited because I fully expect 3-4 prospects to graduate this season:

Gaudreau-Monahan-Ferland
Frolik-Backlund-Lazar
Tkachuk-Bennett-Versteeg
Stajan-Jankowski-Brouwer
Hamilton/Open rookie spot

Gio-Hamilton
Brodie-Hamonic
Kulak-Stone
Open rookie spot

I think having 5 solid vets on the backend will allow Treliving to fulfill his desire. He mentioned on radio months ago that he would ideally have two young guys as the 6/7 and rotate them in and out of the lineup.

[flamesfever]

One of the best graduates of our development program was Byron and we failed to appreciate what we had.

[JohnnyTitan]

I'm going strictly by the CapFriendly Waivers Caclulator (https://www.capfriendly.com/waivers_calculator ... but it appears the following will require waivers this season:
- Kulak
- Wotherspoon
- Poirier
- Lazar
- Shinkaruk

Only Klimchuk seems to be waiver-exempt this season from 2013 or prior. (He's the youngest). Maybe there's an exception with Poirier only 43 games played last season, but I doubt it?

Anyhow - if the above list is accurate, does that not put the Flames in a pickle? I guess on "D" they will likely give Kulak an NHL spot and risk losing Wotherspoon. (Who will likley pass through anyway...in fact I think he already did last season).

But on forward -> there are not enough spots to go around! Are we going to risk losing Shinkaruk and/or Poirier to waivers? Or is the CapFriendly calculator wrong?

Kinda defeats the purpose of "Over-Ripening". In fact, it puts a very strict time-line on just how long you can have your prospects toil in the AHL. No?

[SeanCharles]

It's unlikely anyone would claim Poirier given what he went through last season. Losing Shinkaruk and Wotherspoon, although not ideal, wouldn't be a big loss by any means..