[bigrangy]

The forward group is almost entirely question marks past Gaudreau, Monahan, and Frolik imo.

Then you have Backlund who's playing the best hockey he ever has, which knowing how things go for the Flames, will not continue.

Tkachuk, Bennett, and Jankowski are all question marks right now as to being top 6ers. Will Tkachuk succeed without Backlund? Can Bennett take the next step? Can Janko fulfill the prophecy? I'm optimistic but I'd also rather not have to wonder about the answers to these questions.

Ferland is on and off but there is a good and potentially great player there.

Past those 8 guys, only two more guys could really be called NHLers imo (Stajan and Chiasson)

Lazar is a huge question mark, who's never really shown that he's anything more than a tweener, though he is young and I expect him to train hard

Brouwer is terrible

Bouma is an enigma. Some nights he's awesome but most nights you wonder how he ever made the show

Hathaway is a question mark, though he was dominant in the AHL alongside Janko.

So for the forward group to be complete, Bennett, Tkachuk, and Jankowski have to take big steps to prove themselves, Backlund needs to continue being Backlund, Ferland needs to get more consistent and on top of that nobody needs to get hurt, otherwise Stajan is in your top 9 or Bouma is in your top 12 or whatever.

There's too many questions for me to be 100% confident that this will be a contending forward group but honestly I think the talent is definitely there and I think it's not far fetched to think they could all put it together next year if everything goes right.