Haven't read through all the thread, and not sure how my comment will get taken, but Lance Bouma is such a tricky and risky situation for the Flames in many directions. You want to make sure a heart and soul guy is with you for the long term, but you also don't want to overpay for what he brings, which is a huge risk right now for a bunch of reasons.
1. People keep saying we know what we've got in Lance, but we don't. We do know for sure he's a heart and soul, lay it on the line guy. What we don't know is if he really is a 15 to 20 goal scorer on a regular basis. Points wise, he's on a career year, but he's also now scored more goals this year in the NHL than he ever scored in a single junior season. To question whether Bouma's scoring tough and ability to provide solid solid, secondary scoring for this team will continue beyond this year is very fair.
2. It's also risky because this is a team right now that is "over-achieving" based on all the types of things that Bouma brings. Heart, blocked shots, effort, etc.... Sure, we are more talented than people thought, that's part of it too, but we are also just better coached, have more heart and work hearder than other teams. Bouma is the poster child for that. While, that will ALWAYS be important on a winning team, and this is tough to say with out it being taken to far the other way, but right now the Flames are also in a position of overvaluing that intangible because it is a key differentiator for us. As we continue to get more talented, we will rely less on the "Bouma type efforts" to win games. We will always need the Bouma's of the world to provide what they do, even as a talented team, but it's also key to unsure you don't overpay for those "intangibles", you have to find them affordably.
Anyway, lots of rambling, but this is a really interesting one. Bouma's a key part of this team, and the Flames want to lock up his intangibles moving forward. But it's also key they don't overpay for them, because there is a lot of upgrading the talent of this team that needs to happen for us to get to a true contender state, and that costs. You can't tie too much dollars up in players that bring the workman like attitude and have enough left over to pay for the talent. And, you'd be willing to pay Bouma if he can bring the work, and put up close to 20 every year, but I'd say it's fair to question whether Bouma's offence this year is a one year blip, or what he's going to provide moving forward.
Such a tricky contract for the Flames, with tones of room for a massive overpayment IMO that might come back to haunt us in a few years, depending on length, but at the same time, such a valuable character guy you want to reward and keep happy.
|