Looking at the Canes' roster, what stands out to me is young but 'big name' defencemen, but none of them hit 40pts this year. 30, 31 and 32 for Slavin, Faulk and Hannifin respectfully.
Canes also sit 10th worst (3 spots behind Calgary) for most goals against as well.
These are eerily similar numbers for me. This team is going nowhere if they don't make use of the blue-line to generate offence, or play really good defence. On that note, the Canes were the best team in the league in terms of SA. They only allowed 28.9 shots against.
Now, I haven't seen them play much this year at all, and thus this is complete stat watching. I don't know if they allowed way too many premium shots (breakaways, odd-man rushes, etc), but that is a good sign. Maybe it was awful goaltending... or maybe the goaltending was tasked with making too many tough saves. No idea which way the wind blew there, regardless of what some people say.
It perhaps could be an upgrade on Gulutzan at any rate just based on the SA. I have a problem with their offence generated from the blue-line, and their special teams were bad.
On the surface, it SEEMS like a slight upgrade on Gulutzan, but other than stat watching, I can't really comment one way or the other. A casual fan that doesn't watch the Flames may look at the secondary stats and conclude that indeed the Flames were just unlucky, and that Gulutzan should stay as a head coach. You have to really watch a team regularly to gain any insight at all in how they play and to even be able to venture a guess as to what ails them when things don't go right.
If it is Peters, just hope that the Flames do their homework here. He doesn't scream to me as a guy that you should bank your job on, and if the team doesn't respond under him, Treliving may end up looking for a job as well.
In a perfect world, Treliving doesn't can Hartley when he did, but ends up canning him before Vegas snapped up Gallant. Gallant would be perfect for this team, especially with this defence. Oh well, life is all a bunch of if's, should'ves and maybes.
I think out of the available coaches, Sutter has the least amount of warts, while Ruff could offer the most entertainment/success combination (his up-tempo style and the way he also likes his defencemen to attack might fit this team well). Trotz and Vigneault have warts (not that Trotz is available right now, but may be), but they are also probably upgrades.
Treliving should be sweating making this decision. It may be his last decision on coaching if things don't improve.
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