Quote:
Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy
Haha. They only need to fill 3 top 9 forward spots in my estimation. That's not as bad as you make it out to be IMO.
Gaudreau, Monahan, Tkachuk, Backlund, Frolik and Ferland are all fine where I've put them. None of them are over there heads are they?
Gaudreau, Monahan - legit 1st liners
Tkachuk - legit 2nd liner with room to grow
Ferland, Backlund, Frolik - not one of those guys are in over there heads as 3rd liners are they?
That leaves three spots to fill. Not that bad.
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Frolik is a 30 year old player coming off a 25 pt in 70 game -19 season playing on a line with a centre just extended 5.35 x 6 and a 19 year old putting up 49 pts -1 in 68 games and doing the dirty work on the line.
If the mob hadn't already buried Brouwer, he did not look bad compared to Frolik. Had Brouwer played the whole season with Backlund and Tkachuk he couldn't have done much worse than Frolik.
If you include Frolik in your top -9 then you can include Brouwer, Jankowski and Bennett who had seasons as good as Frolik and you have 9 players who are top-9 and no changes are required.
On the other hand dropping Frolik leaves the Flames with 4 top-9 spots to fill in.
The trouble is even somehow rationalizing Frolik as a legitimate 3rd liner like he was in Chicago 6 years ago the Flames are left needing 1 on the top line and 2 on the second line ... ie 3 out of the top-6.