Quote:
Originally Posted by Bandwagon In Flames
I usually think you have a great read on anything Flames, but this post is way off base. I don't even think an Oiler fan would be delusional enough to believe this.
1. Losing Hudler is addition by subtraction. He was terrible on the top line last season. 90% of his points were fully a credit to Monahan and Gaudreau. He was downright bad for Florida too.
2. Losing Russell is going to help our possession numbers. Jokipakka has been up and down, but I still like him as our number 5 guy.
3. Colborne had way more opportunity on the Flames than Brouwer did with St. Louis. There's 0 chance Colborne comes within 10 points this year with Brouwer on the 2nd line with Bennett. Also, Colborne was only good when the games didn't matter.
4. Wideman can't get any worse than last year and actually looks serviceable so far in the pre-season.
5. Kulak looks to be poised to start the season in the NHL once again, but this time with a healthy roster. He's a very solid 2-way defenseman.
6. Bennett looks to be on another level this season. With Tkachuk on his LW and Brouwer on his RW, we now have 2 legit scoring lines instead of 1. And with Bennett away from Backlund, he'll have more looks in the offensive zone this season.
7. Hopefully Frolik can stay healthy this season. It was obvious he helped our team defense drastically when in the line-up.
8. Another year's maturity on one of the youngest teams in the NHL.
I mean, seriously why the hell do you think we're worse this year?
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These are pretty much my thoughts, although I would not go so far as to declare Hudler's replacement "addition by subtraction." I'm more of the opinion that as the third player on the top line he was a "replacement player": an adequate complimentary player whose job is basically to keep up with the other two. The top line will be productive because Monahan and Gaudreau will produce, and it doesn't matter significantly who the third player on the line is. This is how a lot of teams are constructed and find success in today's NHL: does anyone seriously think that Bryan Rust or Conor Sheary are legitimately top-six NHLers?