2014-15 General Adirondack Flames Discussion Thread

[SuperMatt18]

I kind of think with the new division, and more practice time we can probably go with a younger d-core.

My assumption would be that Wotherspoon graduates to the full time 6/7 role next year and the following 6 are guys in the AHL.

Ramage - RFA (24)
Morrison - ELC (23)
Sieloff - ELC (20)
Kulak - ELC (20)
Culkin - ELC (21)
Kanzig - ELC (20)

Maybe add 2 veterans and roll with 8 D-men (Cundari and Acolaste?)

A guy like Kanzig could even start in the ECHL, seemed to help Kulak out.

[sureLoss]

Jacob Deserres was released from his ATO

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

I kind of think with the new division, and more practice time we can probably go with a younger d-core.

My assumption would be that Wotherspoon graduates to the full time 6/7 role next year and the following 6 are guys in the AHL.

Ramage - RFA (24)
Morrison - ELC (23)
Sieloff - ELC (20)
Kulak - ELC (20)
Culkin - ELC (21)
Kanzig - ELC (20)

Maybe add 2 veterans and roll with 8 D-men (Cundari and Acolaste

I get this feeling they're pretty high on Dustin Stevenson too... they could consider him an Engelland 2.0

[Wastedyouth]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

I get this feeling they're pretty high on Dustin Stevenson too... they could consider him an Engelland 2.0

wonderful....

[sureLoss]

Diana C. Nearhos @dianacnearhos
The Flames released Deserres. They're back to three goalies. Also a couple new guys on the ice that are not on the roster/transactions wire.

Diana C. Nearhos @dianacnearhos
Setoguchi, Gillies, Hanowski, Cundari still missing. Yonkman, Stevenson now added to that list.

[sureLoss]

http://poststar.com/blogs/flames/luc...2fe9735a0.html

Two players so new they weren't listed on the roster joined the Flames Tuesday. Lucas Bloodoff and Nick Huard were the fifteenth and sixteenth forwards on the ice.

Bloodoff spent most of the season with Elmira (EHCL). The 25-year-old winger had 11 goals, 11 assists and 77 penalty minutes in 44 games.

Huard left the University of Guelph after three seasons. The 24-year-old winger then signed with Cincinnati (ECHL). Huard, 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds, scored three goals and three assists in six EHCL games. He had 28 points (11 goals, 17 assists) in 28 games in his last season with Guelph.

Coach Ryan Huska called the two players "ECHL guys we brought up to take a look at."

[Parallex]

I remember Lucas Bloodoff. He and his brother Evan played on the same Rockets team that Backlund, Myers, and Benn played on.

[sureLoss]

Marlies won 5-2 against Iowa and mathematically eliminate Adirondack from playoff contention.

April 19 will be the last day for the Adirondack Flames team and franchise.

Expect a lot of them will be called up as Black Aces.

[Drury18]

Yea, I didn't think that Iowa was going to give us any help there. We were asking a team who has won 2 games in the last 14 to bail our butts out against a team who seems to be hitting a stride just at the right time. It was highly unlikely.

Great opportunity to call up Wolf, Agostino, Poirier, Hathaway, Elson, Reinhart and Culkin (despite the injury) and let them get a little taste of the NHL and playoff atmosphere as a reward for great seasons. Or in Reinhart and Agostino's cases, turning it around before all hope was lost, they finished strong so I would include them on the list.

[Calgary4LIfe]

I have been such a Reinhart fan. Feel terrible for his disappointing season, though at least he started doing better down the stretch. I am really hoping this was a 'blip' and he continues turning it around. I really thought this kid was a "No way in hell he won't be an NHL'er" prospect. Still time, and I hope that the Flames keep him around next season (though I suppose they would want to considering Granlund and Jooris are most likely graduated).

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

I have been such a Reinhart fan. Feel terrible for his disappointing season, though at least he started doing better down the stretch. I am really hoping this was a 'blip' and he continues turning it around. I really thought this kid was a "No way in hell he won't be an NHL'er" prospect. Still time, and I hope that the Flames keep him around next season (though I suppose they would want to considering Granlund and Jooris are most likely graduated).

It's weird, he wasn't necessarily bad in the first half of the year, everything just did not go his way in any way shape or form. I haven't seen too many players ever have that kind of bad luck for such a long duration. He will finish in the top 5 for Addy in points which isn't bad considering.

I wouldn't be shocked if he started next year in Calgary despite having such a bad 1st half. Have to wait and see.

[Max Cow Disease]

So what do the best informed (Drury18 most likely) attribute these guys missing the playoffs to? Flames fans who don't watch the AHL much exist in a sort of vacuum where we obliviously value our bountiful prospect cupboard and organizational depth, so it puzzles me that this seemed to be such an underwhelming year for the baby Flames.

In short, what happened? Are other AHL teams just that good? Should Utica being so good and also a Vancouver farm team concern Flames fans in some way?

[Caged Great]

Addy had no real veteran forwards.

most other teams are full of vets. Utica as an example is mostly vets.

When players got recalled/injured, there was no stability in the lineup.

[Drury18]

Originally Posted by Max Cow Disease

So what do the best informed (Drury18 most likely) attribute these guys missing the playoffs to? Flames fans who don't watch the AHL much exist in a sort of vacuum where we obliviously value our bountiful prospect cupboard and organizational depth, so it puzzles me that this seemed to be such an underwhelming year for the baby Flames.

In short, what happened? Are other AHL teams just that good? Should Utica being so good and also a Vancouver farm team concern Flames fans in some way?

Coaching. Coaching was a BIG problem this year. Ryan Huska has had the same list of excuses since Game 1 and we've seen little improvement over the year in the same area's. I think he was in over his head big time with this job and I hope he's not brought back. I don't think he was the right guy for the job. The team needed a Bob Hartley Jr and we got a Dallas Eakins Jr. Just an all around weak coaching staff who seemed to focus more on making excuses and trying to make things sound better then they were rather then correct the issue. With rookies and college guys, you need a coach that helps them through issues and gives them tips to work through it. I recall Huska calling Max Reinhart's situation a matter of luck. He just had bad luck. He seemed lost what to do to help the college wall. And when things went really wrong, he put the onus on the goalies to do a better job and for Ortio to step up and carry the team. It was frustrating to listen to his interviews and see that he had absolutely no answer to how to correct problems and constantly said it was the "ebbs and flow" of the league and that "all teams are really good". He was just as lost out there as our rookies and I think with a stronger coach, we probably see some correction during the season and we probably squeak into the playoffs.

The other main reason would be the sheer volume of new and young players and just not finding chemistry. There was really no core that moved from Abbotsford to Adirondack and it was a brand new team playing. The management in Adirondack tried to bring in some older veteran guys to force a core and I don't think it worked. We were constantly shuffling lines to get chemistry (or sometimes shuffling even when we did find it because Huska wanted to spark other lines and would break up good lines, another thing that drove me nuts), find it and then someone would be called up or injured and we would reshuffle. I think a "long time" line would have been maybe 3 weeks together at best.

We absolutely have great prospects in the system. Missing the playoffs is not an accurate gauge to the talent of our prospects. Utica is of no concern, their lineup only has 4 actual Canucks prospects, Adirondack has triple that. We will probably never seen half that Utica team in the NHL ever.

[Drury18]

To add to my rookie point, we have 4 rookies in the Top 20 in Rookie scoring in the AHL and others ranking in the top for other things like PPA and SHG.

Please, do not worry about the rookies. We have them, they are among the best in the league. It is not a weakness. This isn't the green Kool-Aid of years past where we are pawning off bubble players as prospects. We have real ones now and I believe we will see many of them in the NHL.

[getbak]

It's incredible, when you go down the Flames' points leaders list, you have to get to 21st place (Yonkman) before you find a player who is over 25. That includes Knight and Baertschi, so I guess there are only 18 still in the system.

Of Utica's top 5 in points, 4 are 25 or older. For OKC all five of their top 5 are 25 or older.

[Vulcan]

The team didn't do much in the standings but from the Flames point of view, Ferland,
Granlund, and Jooris were all developed well, Ortio too. For me the biggest disappointment would be Wotherspoon but a couple of other defencemen seemed to have made strides. I think Huska will be back. One season isn't enough to write him off.

[Pierre "Monster" McGuire]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

The team didn't do much in the standings but from the Flames point of view, Ferland,
Granlund, and Jooris were all developed well, Ortio too. For me the biggest disappointment would be Wotherspoon but a couple of other defencemen seemed to have made strides. I think Huska will be back. One season isn't enough to write him off.

Don't be disappointed in Wotherspoon, Vulcan. Trust me. Him not getting into any NHL games isn't an indication of just how solid this kid is.

The progression is real. He's still the stifling wall he was last season, but he's added a pinch of offense and an ocean's worth of confidence in himself to make the smart plays. Last season, if a puck was nearby but he didn't think he'd get to it before the opposing forward, he'd back off and attack the player after they'd get the puck. This season, he'll go for those loose pucks and often times make something out of it. He's a lot more aggressive in those sorts of plays.

That's just one example, but there are several other areas in which Wotherspoon has taken moon leaps. He'll be fine. I have no doubt he'll be on the Flames blue line next season.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by Drury18

Coaching. Coaching was a BIG problem this year. Ryan Huska has had the same list of excuses since Game 1 and we've seen little improvement over the year in the same area's.

So I'm not the only who felt that way. Kind of makes me nervous, because a lot of guys on the big team (Jooris, Ferland, Brodie, Byron, Wotherspoon, Granlund) all developed positively under Ward with his attention to detail. A lot of guys otoh seemed to regress under Huska (Reinhart, Baertschi RIP, Shore, Ferland, Knight).

I hope I'm/we're wrong, because developing our players, especially the over half-dozen D-men (Kulak, Culkin, Wotherspoon, Kanzig, Sieloff, Morrison, Cundari?, ?Roy?) that will be in Stockton, is the single most important thing in the next two years. Even more than Huska, I'm nervous about Todd Gill as our defenseman coach.

[3rd line Grinder]

Drury, from what you have seen? Who are the black aces getting the call up after the game tonight?