Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
All the arguing back and forth about whether the Flames got the better players really is irrelevant. I like the players that we got back, but they really don’t change the make up of the hockey team or address weakness. The problem that faced the team was a need to get another top six forward that was a proven scorer. Mission NOT accomplished. This was a lateral move in the big picture and did not address the pressing need of the hockey team.
Treliving continues to be very slow at addressing the significant holes in the organization. He loves the big glitzy trades, but he doesn’t address the major needs of the hockey team. We are still without a top RW, a proven scorer, and a long term solution between the pipes. All of these are the problems that faced this team from day one for Treliving, but he has yet to find a way to address the needs. Pretty sad considering the number of high draft picks and assets he’s burned through.
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Lindholm is our new top line RW - so I believe our new focus becomes on a 3rd line scoring winger to help balance the scoring, and then the 4th line either gets filled out by youth or through the addition of someone like Derek Ryan.
Given what we've heard from Peters (Lindholm will play with Johnny & Sean, Tkachuk is starting as a RW) I believe this is our line-up:
Gaudreau - Monahan - Lindholm
Bennett - Backlund - Tkachuk
?????? - Jankowski - Frolik
?????? - Shore - Lazar
Brouwer
Giordano - Brodie
Hanifin - Hamonic
Kulak/Andersson/Stone
Smith
Gillies
So now Treliving gets to look to free agency (van Riemsdyk, Neal, Perron, Ryan) and internally (Foo, Mangiapane) to fill out those bottom two lines, and build a forward group that features 4 lines that can produce.