[Kovaz]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Dallas is also out of the playoffs right now. So, their glaring weaknesses are contributing to them not being a playoff calibre roster. You'll note, they also missed the playoffs last year. So, if the criteria is to be as good as a non-playoff team that is top heavy on offense, then that's great, the Flames are right there with them.

Fine, ignore Dallas then. Colorado, San Jose, and LA are also flawed teams that are in the playoffs, and if one of them misses it's because Dallas passed them.

There's no question in my mind that Backlund and especially Frolik are underperforming this year. The lack of goals from Backlund is a huge factor in the Flames being out of the playoffs right now. But, you're starting to get dishonest here to try to paint me as irrational, i never mentioned backlund or frolik in my post, but I DID mention specifically the players I thought weren't good enough. Interesting that there is no response about that...

Of the players you mentioned:

Glass and Hamilton played a total of about 130 minutes in 17 games allowing a total of 4 goals against
Versteeg has played 24 games, with 4 goals for and 5 against
Jagr's lines had 12 goals for and 6 against in his 22 games.
Brouwer's played just about every game and he's -1
Bartkowski has played 14 games, with 4 goals for and 7 against

So the players who weren't good enough add up to a total impact of -3 goals. Hardly a season-ruining performance from the bottom of the roster. If that's "by far the biggest weakness on the team", you're in pretty good shape.

But since you're blaming our poor season on the lack of NHL talent, surely the players without NHL talent would be the ones getting out-scored, right? That's why I brought up Backlund and Frolik. If we're losing because of a lack of talent, surely the guys at -15 and -12 are the culprits?

So is the argument here that the Dallas Stars should be a playoff team if Hitchcock wasn't such a bad coach? Is he not getting the most out of his subpar players? You brought up the comparison to Dallas and are saying the coaches job is to get the most out players under the cap, does that mean Ken Hitchcock is a bad coach?

Maybe he is, I'm not sure. I only brought up Dallas because they're ahead of us with an at least comparably flawed roster. I haven't looked nearly as closely at them. Maybe Hitchcock's coaching is the reason they're 25th in 5v5 scoring, and that's the culprit. But like I said above - ignore them, because LA, San Jose, and Colorado are better examples.

My personal opinion is that there aren't many options for the coaching staff to utilize. If you play Hamilton as the lone D on the top unit you're probably going to have bad SHG numbers. I don't know that Hamilton is a terrific passer in all situations consistently. Brodie is a better option for gaining the zone with possession. Playing Brodie on the top PP lets you play hamonic on the PK and keep their numbers similar. Having Brodie out on the first unit allows you to have a solid pairing of Hamilton/Gio on the second unit for when the PP ends and defending becomes more necessary. Hamilton and Gio are far and away the best pairing on the Flames, so it makes the most sense to have them out in situations where they will be expected to defend. Brodie has shown to be completely unreliable defensively this year which is why he doesn't often get that kind of treatment.

I don't think anything in the paragraph above is either groundbreaking or controversial.

They may be mistakenly using players in situations they shouldn't be, but I'm not naive enough to think that's because 4 or 5 coaches with over a thousand games of NHL experience don't know what they are doing. I think they are doing the best they can to get this subpar group into the playoffs based on the marching orders of ownership/management.

Sure, they have an impact, but changes cascade through the lineup. Put Bennett on the 1st line and the third line completely falls apart. Put Tkachuk on the first line and the second line produces basically zero. Put Brouwer on the first line and the team falls apart.

Ferland gets the top line wing spot by freakin' default because at least he doesn't neuter the other two guys like every other option they've tested with them this year (WHICH INCLUDES Bennett).

There aren't any good options. The team is filled with not good enough on basically every line they have.

I'm not trying to suggest there's an obvious answer here with no drawbacks. If there was, there wouldn't be nearly as much arguing going on here. But chemistry isn't a predictable thing, and they've tried so few options that we just don't know if the good outweighs the bad for some of them. Sometimes there are combinations out there that can be more than the sum of their parts.

My point is that when the team as a whole isn't succeeding, is the best course of action really to throw our hands in the air and say "we're not good enough!" At least if we'd tried a bunch of different things and failed at all of them, we'd be able to more confidently say the roster isn't good enough. As it stands, I'm terrified of a lot of potential moves that may happen this summer, because I think there's a good chance that the guy we move out dramatically outperforms his trade value once he's in a better situation.

What in the actual #### makes you believe this? Is this your first season watching the Flames? They barely made the playoffs last year after deadline acquisitions and got swept once they got there. The year before that, they were TWENTY SIXTH in the league. They've made the playoffs ONE TIME in the last SEVEN seasons. What on earth compels you to think this roster is a foregone conclusion as a playoff competitor?

I mean, honestly here, what is the critical analysis that suggested a team that didn't score enough last year to be a contender was going to score enough this year after adding zero offense? Other than platitudes about the best defense in the league, it's been crickets on that question for months on this message board. Is this just a message board for homers now? Calgaryflames.com?

Why is your opinion that they should be a playoff team more valid than mine that they weren't going to be when my analysis bears fruit and yours doesn't?

I'm honestly shocked that that's the statement you reacted most strongly to. There are 30 other rosters in the league that have flaws. Half of them will make the playoffs.

A lot of those arguments don't really matter when evaluating the quality of the roster right now. Who cares where we were in the standings two years ago? That year, Winnipeg was 25th, Columbus was 27th, and Toronto was 30th. All three are good teams today that will make the playoffs. And again, when the majority of our core was acquired in the last 3-4 years, why does it matter that we missed the playoffs 6 years ago? Should Chicago feel good about where their team is at right now? They've made the playoffs 9 years in a row. Should we be writing off Boston? They've missed 3 of the last 4 years. How about Winnipeg? They've also missed in 6 of 7 and haven't won a playoff game in franchise history.

As for our scoring - obviously that was a concern. That's the biggest weakness our team has. But the point I'm trying to make is having flaws doesn't immediately make you a bad team. Every team has flaws. You have to quantify those things and evaluate them in the context of the team as a whole. Obviously we weren't going to score 300 goals this year. But we were still roughly average last year, and we scored more goals than either of LA's cup winners. 220 goals is plenty if you're great defensively.

We're not debating about whether or not they should be a playoff team, we're debating why they aren't. You're arguing that the roster isn't good enough. I'm arguing the roster is good enough, but the coaching falls short. I'm not trying to say "your opinion isn't valid," but when you post things like:

this is NOT a contending roster. That is absolutely nuts to think

What on earth compelled the management of this team to be as deluded as a fanbase full of homers?

This organization is terrible

it doesn't really leave a lot to debate against.