[MissTeeks]

I'm not sure if this is something that people want around here, but I thought maybe we could have a thread to put Friedman's 30 Thoughts articles every week. He always has lots of good bits of information that can go in about ten different threads so I thought it might be good to keep them in one? I'll do it for this week anways and if it falls off after that, that's okay by me!

http://www.cbc.ca/sports-content/hoc...ne-in-nhl.html

Lots of Flames stuff this week:

3. I don't see the Flames a ton, so their morning skate was really interesting to me. In 2003, when I covered baseball, the Toronto Blue Jays said they never saw a team work harder in batting practice than the Detroit Tigers when Alan Trammell managed them. Detroit was rebuilding and I asked Trammell about it. He said no opportunity was too small to teach a young team to play properly. That's Calgary right now. Hartley runs the most detailed morning skates I've seen. Saturday, there were 3-on-3 down-low drills and pretty specific zone coverage work.

6. Giordano said Saturday morning that the Flames were guilty of "cheating" defensively because they were so pre-occupied by the lack of scoring. "Guys start to leave too soon because they want to create offence," he said. They were better against Vancouver and San Jose, allowing a respectable 55 shots in regulation in those two games, but grabbed just one point. Frustrating.

7. Here's where it looks like it stands with reluctant Flames general managerial candidate Joe Nieuwendyk. He's coaching his kids in hockey this year and apparently enjoying it (who wouldn't?). People who know him far better than I do believe his competitive nature will make him want to try running a team again because his last run ended in an unsatisfying manner. Burke really respects him and so do the Flames.
8. Two questions that seem to be out there are "Does his family want to go to Calgary?" and "How much control will he have?" The latter is important because the Dallas Stars went through several changes of direction while he led them, which will drive any GM crazy. If Nieuwendyk does step back into the business, he'll want a better set-up. Money is not the issue in southern Alberta, but how will the organizational flow chart look?

11. Finally on Calgary, I'm beginning to think one rule of TWwitter is for every fan to hate everything the GM does. Matt Stajan takes a slight cut to his average annual value to stay in Calgary. He's their best faceoff man. Only Mikael Backlund takes more and his future in Calgary is uncertain. You need guys like Stajan to shield the young centremen, like Sean Monahan and whoever else is coming, from being thrown entirely to the Western Conference wolves while you rebuild.