Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Which players, specifically, are you talking about?
The Flames currently have seven 1st or 2nd year players on the roster (I consider Colborne and Byron 2nd year players, as they didn't establish themselves as full-time NHLers until last season).
11 players age 24 or under have skated on the Flames NHL roster this season. I'm pretty sure that's the most in the league.
This is already an extraordinarily young, inexperienced team. You want to throw two or three more rookies into the mix this season? When we know two or three rookies will almost certainly make the team out of camp next season as well?
Sorry, but I find it hard to imagine an NHL roster with 10 players in their 1st or 2nd season, and several more in their third season. Not when there's a salary floor to consider, and the example of a train wreck of a team up the road where too many players were given too much responsibility at too young an age.
I expect the highly skilled prospects to make the team at 20-21, and the second tier prospects to make the team at 22-24. And of course, many of them won't make the jump at all.
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Up until the veteran leadership came back Stajan - Raymond the Flames were doing great.
Now they have reverted to the extended exhibition season where the win-loses do not matter as much as performance evaluation.
This is what a lot of people were expecting at the start of the season.
There is a consensus (brought on by blind fan-boy support??) that the Flames are playing well over this 8 game losing streak and that they have been NHL level competitive. .
I think the priority is that the Flames find out about their abundance of guys they have 22-24 years old.... call it the Jooris class: Knight Agostino, Hanowski, Arnold, Rienhart, Wolf, Ferland.
Next year they will be a lot closer to becoming an AHL journeymen with less of a chance of getting a real NHL tryout.
If Setoguchi wasn't total done and had popped in 2-3 goals in the exhibition season he might have taken away Jooris's big NHL tryout.
I would like to see these guys all get a 10 game NHL try-out taking Raymond's ice time.
I really don't care if Raymond (or Stajan) can play well enough to hang on to a NHL job for another 4 years. They might good enough to hang on as 3rd liner on a non-playoff team.