[Cali Panthers Fan]

I'm a little torn on Lehner. On the one hand he has great tools to become a very good NHL goaltender. On the other hand, he had a little regression after 2 seasons as the backup and save percentages over .930. The problem is, as soon as he received more playing time, his numbers took a dip and it looks like he has some holes in his game that will take time to iron out. He's turning 24 in a month, so he's still incredibly young for a goaltender.

But then you look at our current and future situation and I just don't see a need. Is he an upgrade on Hiller? Possibly. I'm not even convinced that he'd offer more in the short term. Is he better than Ortio? Well his pedigree says he is, and he's about 2 seasons further in his development, but all the numbers over the past couple of years indicate they are comparables at both the AHL and NHL level.

We also already have probably one of the top goaltending prospects in the league with Jon Gillies heading into his first pro season. Trading for Lehner makes sense if you're the Oilers and you have zero decent prospects in the pipeline, but the Flames already have 2 decent ones in development (Gillies and McDonald), and 1 about to graduate to the NHL this year (Ortio). Plus, the Flames already have Hiller under contract for this year and he's a more than capable veteran who can handle at least 40-50 games well enough.

Bringing in Lehner would just recreate the situation we had last year with Hiller as the veteran who can win but has holes in his game, Lehner as the young promising goaltender who will have great stretches but also has holes in his game, and Ortio as the guy who can outperform both but is stuck as 3rd stringer. Not to mention that the reported cost for Lehner is too high for something that we don't even necessarily need.

It's good that Treliving is looking into things like this, but I hope he doesn't do this unless it's part of a larger deal.