Francis: Will be shocked if Flames don't re-sign Chad Johnson in free agency

[IamNotKenKing]

I have heard that a condition of the trade was that the Flames kept negotiation rights to Johnson during this time period. Not necessarily exclusive, but they can still talk.

[Karl]

Rittich should be the Flames backup.

[Angelino]

Originally Posted by Karl

Rittich should be the Flames backup.

Would like to see this as well. It will give Gilles as much starting time in the AHL as possible and can get a good look at Rittich at the NHL level in a backup role.

[RedHot25]

Oie, Eric Francis, hard to know what is going on. Francis was just on radio wondering why VGK took Engelland before free agency as Engelland isn't going anywhere, no one wants him...then 2 mins later says he doesn't understand at all why he only signed for $1 million for 1 yr, there are teams out there that would give him 2 million/yr for at least 2 yrs....

...all this to say who knows what happens with Chad Johnson but I take any of Francis's info with a grain of salt.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

Frankly he did deserve more leeway. He saves our season and then it seemed like he had 1 bad game and then they turned to Elliott and never turned back. I understand why GG did it but it struck me as unfair to him at the time. Guess we'll see if he's still bitter about it come July 1st

That is not really what happened:

On the heels of Johnson's six-game streak in Dec, he started the next two, lost them both and recorded a 0.840 SP. Elliott started and won the next game against Arizona, and Johnson started again on 20 Dec against SJ, and lost with a SP of 0.880.

From the start of Jan he started 12 more games and won only 5. He registered a 3.07 GAA and a 0.891 SP over that time.

That is not good enough.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by Karl

Rittich should be the Flames backup.

Im skeptical Treliving would want the Flames one Smith injury away from a duo of goalies who have a combined 2 games of NHL experience. There's no way they don't get an experienced backup imo

[Roof-Daddy]

Anders Nilsson come on down.

[442scotty]

I think Johnson will be surprised at the lack of interest in him

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

Frankly he did deserve more leeway. He saves our season and then it seemed like he had 1 bad game and then they turned to Elliott and never turned back. I understand why GG did it but it struck me as unfair to him at the time. Guess we'll see if he's still bitter about it come July 1st

That's not what happened at all. After Johnson's six game win streak in November-December, he played and lost two in a row. Here's what happened next:

• Elliott wins
• Johnson loses
• Elliott wins two
• Johnson loses
• Elliott wins two, loses one
• Johnson goes W-L-W-L
• Next five games Johnson goes 1-2 and Elliott goes 0-2
• Elliott wins 3, loses 1
• Johnson wins 1, loses 1
• Elliot goes 3-0-1
• Johnson wins 1
• Elliott wins 7
• Johnson loses 1
• Elliott wins 2, loses 1
• Johnson loses 1
• Elliott plays 7 of last 8, and Gillies gets the other

There were a whole lot of Johnson losses in there. I also think he was injured near the end of the season, so that's why Elliott got most of the starts. From the sequence above, Johnson got a lot of chances. He didn't do much with them. Elliott set the franchise consecutive wins record, and they still gave Johnson a shot during it, which he lost. He went 5-9. He played in 35% of the games after his win streak, which is on pace for 29 games on the season. That's a lot of games for a backup. If the backup is playing 29, the starter is playing 53. 21 goalies played more than 53 games last year. Elliott played 49, tied for 27th.

[the_only_turek_fan]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

Francis on 960 now saying that he doesn't think Johnson will come back. Citing people close to Johnson, he says Johnson feels like he deserved more leeway with the organization after his play early in the season.

This quote is redundant evidence that Eric Francis has no idea what he is talking about.

[GullFoss]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

That is not really what happened:

On the heels of Johnson's six-game streak in Dec, he started the next two, lost them both and recorded a 0.840 SP. Elliott started and won the next game against Arizona, and Johnson started again on 20 Dec against SJ, and lost with a SP of 0.880.

From the start of Jan he started 12 more games and won only 5. He registered a 3.07 GAA and a 0.891 SP over that time.

That is not good enough.

This doesn't really tell the whole story - and I too think Johnson got a bit of a raw deal through December

• So, Johnson wins 6 in a row to December 10. Then he gets to face TBL and CLB - two very tough teams, with CLB perhaps on their crazy win steak. He loses both. So now he's 6-2 in his last 8 games.
  
• Instead of letting Johnson play game 9, the flames get Elliott to play a joke of a team in ARZ; he obviously wins that game.
• Then Johnson gets a tough match up in SJS: he loses
• Then in the next 3 of 4 games Elliott gets Vancouver, Colorado and Arizona - perhaps the three worst teams in the league. Johnson? He gets to play SJS again.

Its actually so blatently obvious that Elliott was getting all of the joke teams because the coaches and management really wanted him to get going. In a way he was really babied.

But yet, even after those strings of games to end out December, Johnson goes cold while Elliott continues to suck when he plays teams of any significance. So January was a rough month until the Via Rail incident occurs and the team turns around.

Outside of February and March - where Elliott played well, but the team played even better - Elliott was hot garbage the entire season. Much of that is masked by the weak strength of his schedule. Arguably, if Johnson was truly given the reigns in December, the Flames would have still made the playoffs and actually won a few games when they got there.

[JJolg]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

This doesn't really tell the whole story - and I too think Johnson got a bit of a raw deal through December

• So, Johnson wins 6 in a row to December 10. Then he gets to face TBL and CLB - two very tough teams, with CLB perhaps on their crazy win steak. He loses both. So now he's 6-2 in his last 8 games.
  
• Instead of letting Johnson play game 9, the flames get Elliott to play a joke of a team in ARZ; he obviously wins that game.
• Then Johnson gets a tough match up in SJS: he loses
• Then in the next 3 of 4 games Elliott gets Vancouver, Colorado and Arizona - perhaps the three worst teams in the league. Johnson? He gets to play SJS again.

Its actually so blatently obvious that Elliott was getting all of the joke teams because the coaches and management really wanted him to get going. In a way he was really babied.

But yet, even after those strings of games to end out December, Johnson goes cold while Elliott continues to suck when he plays teams of any significance. So January was a rough month until the Via Rail incident occurs and the team turns around.

Outside of February and March - where Elliott played well, but the team played even better - Elliott was hot garbage the entire season. Much of that is masked by the weak strength of his schedule. Arguably, if Johnson was truly given the reigns in December, the Flames would have still made the playoffs and actually won a few games when they got there.

It's just as easy to argue that if we kept playing Johnson in December we would lost all the games due to soft glove side goals.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

This doesn't really tell the whole story - and I too think Johnson got a bit of a raw deal through December


[LIST]
[*]So, Johnson wins 6 in a row to December 10. Then he gets to face TBL and CLB - two very tough teams, with CLB perhaps on their crazy win steak. He loses both. So now he's 6-2 in his last 8 games...

You clearly did not actually watch those games, because in both Johnson was quite poor. It would be one thing had he played well—or even adequate—in two tough losses. But no, he was bad.

Johnson did not get a raw deal. Outside of a nice streak in Nov/Dec he did not play well. And no, I completely reject your unfounded assertion that he would have guided the Flames comfortably into the playoffs and on to the second round in Elliott's stead. There is nothing to suggest that this might have happened.

[Strange Brew]

The Flames no doubt tried to coddle Elliott with some easier opponents to get his confidence back. Part of the reason is because Johnsn's play fell off and they needed somebody to play well. I was in love with the Chad and really thought he would be the guy but he never really recovered his best stuff. Too bad, because his hot streak was better than anything Elliott did all year.

I'd like Chad back as a backup but there are other options too. Has to be a one year deal.

[Poe969]

Please don't bring him back. There has to be better options out there, there has to be.

[Erick Estrada]

The team already has a 35 year old starter and I don't see the sense in having a 31 year old backup behind him. Flames have to get younger at the position and sooner or later you have to give your younger guys a chance or what was the point of signing Rittich? If the team didn't have the confidence Smith could play 60+ games they shouldn't have brought him in at his age. Johnson made sense backing up Elliott that never proved he could handle 50+ games but bringing Johnson back now they have a guy that can play a lot of games this seems like a team that's just scared to play their young guys and you can't run your team this way in this day and age.

[Moneyhands23]

Originally Posted by Karl

Rittich should be the Flames backup.

If he has a good camp I agree

[Young_Guns]

Originally Posted by the_only_turek_fan

This quote is redundant evidence that Eric Francis has no idea what he is talking about.

Eric Francis needs to stick to his Pizza Pig-Outs

[jayswin]

The biggest problem with Johnson is he appears to have had a major weakness exposed and then exploited by western conference teams half way through last season. Any skilled/hard shooter goes upstairs, glove hand and it was in.

That type of weakness being common knowledge was really going to hurt him next season playing in on the same team, imo.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by jayswin

The biggest problem with Johnson is he appears to have had a major weakness exposed and then exploited by western conference teams half way through last season. Any skilled/hard shooter goes upstairs, glove hand and it was in.

That type of weakness being common knowledge was really going to hurt him next season playing in on the same team, imo.

Was it a weakness, or just a guy who lost his mojo? You don't post a .920 over 45 games (2015-16) or a .925 over 27 games (2013-14) without the basic capacity to make a glove save. I imagine his struggles probably had more to do with whatever adjustments Sigalet implemented. I say this because Johnson falling off the map happened right after he finally got a three-four day break to work with Sigalet on his game outside of the games. Could just be a co-incidence but those little adjustments can have huge effects.