Quote:
Originally Posted by kyuss275
Personally I think Smid has played his last game as a calgary flame. Him and Engelland together were a brutal pairing. Can't see flames trading Engelland over Smid. Need a good skating, good outlet pass dman for bottom pairing. I do agree that flames should explore getting a young dman at the draft through trade. If that does not happen I see them going after one of the expensive ufa dmen. Also all those dmen you just mentioned are far better than Engelland. Until Engelland signed with flames he was a 6/7 d man. Those other guys are far better than that.
As I mentioned before I don't see the flames brass waiting around to see if Wotherspoon can push Engelland/Smid down the roster. If he can't then what? They tried all year to improve the D through trade and prices were to high. Don't see the prices dropping next year.
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I think the question that has to be asked is, is Mike Green or Paul Martin (or anyone else in that list, Jeff Petry lol) better than Denis Wideman to push Wideman (and his big UFA dollars) to a bottom pairing role so you can sit Engelland in the press box? I'm not convinced that any of those guys are even better than Wideman, so I don't see why you would commit ~$15M to your bottom 3 defenseman... just seems crazy to me.
The solution? I honestly think the answer is in Wotherspoon and Schlemko. I think we have the right mix right now where we have a few guys that can play up the roster to a 2nd pairing role, but they can be pushed down the depth chart without their cap hits being too paralyzing.
As for Wotherspoon.... I think the plan all along was to keep him playing big minutes, full season in the AHL rather then having him coming up and down. Conroy mentioned this earlier on the post-game show, it seems like they are fully confident if he comes up and plays in the top 6, but what they don't want is for him to be sitting. Conroy almost slipped to say this outright, but the Flames would rather the #7 guy be a vet and not a young guy..... so if Wotherspoon makes the team, he's playing. Based upon viewings from last year (and reports on how well he is doing) I think he plays up in Calgary next year, full season. Wouldn't surprise me to see him take the #4 spot from Wideman either..... I really like his hockey sense.
If all of that fails? Scouting reports on Schlemko are that he can play up the roster. Wouldn't surprise me to see Doug Murray get a 2-way contract to fill that depth either. So, I don't really see a hole there.
The only position I really want to fill is having a big strong RWer, but I'm not convinced anyone out there is better than David Jones besides Joel Ward, but it doesn't look like he'll make it to UFA.