[Caged Great]

Frankly, the Flames only have 3 top six forwards at the moment. Tkachuk, Gaudreau and Monahan.

Backlund and Frolik are elite 3rd line players, but if they're in your top 6, your team has depth issues, which the Flames do.

So in order to fix the problem, they need 2 legitimate 50+ point players. Not exactly easy.

The idea situation is that Bennett emerges finally into the player he should be or Jankowski takes another step and becomes the legitimate #2 center. The problem is do you bank on that happening with your season on the line?

If they feel comfortable that one of those two will step up, then they would only need one additional player, which would need to be a RW.

Personally this is how I think things should shake out

Gaudreau-Monahan-Ferland (out of necessity)
Tkachuk-Jankowski-New guy
Bennett-Backlund-Frolik
Miscellaneous 4th line guys.

That would be fine and may help Bennett to get his stuff together. If that's the case, then you could make Gaudreau flip with Ferland and Bennett up to line #1 and shift Ferland to line 3 or 4.