Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
Why do people keep saying this? It's not hard—let me show you:
The Flames made seismic changes to their whole roster, upgraded every forward line, have overhauled the coaching staff and graduated two rookies after on the basis of their exceptional preseason campaigns. If nothing else, this is a dramatically different team from last season. The results should likewise be dramatically different.
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So I'm clear, the premises of your argument are that the Flames have upgraded their roster and that they are a dramatically different team from last season, which leads you to conclude that they will have a dramatically different result? I assume you mean an improved result, since you mentioned that they improved their team.
Unfortunately, "seismic change" does not itself guarantee success. Overhauling the coaching staff doesn't guarantee success. Graduating rookies does not guarantee success. Significant roster turnover does not guarantee success. What have the Flames truly upgraded aside from their forward depth and Hanifin vs Hamilton?
Mike Smith is still a wildcard in my opinion, he is not getting any younger and he played terribly after his injury last year. We don't have a proven backup goalie, our defense played terrible in front of Smith last year. Even if Smith is great, is he going to be able to play in 70 games, stay healthy, and still be great? Will our backups hold up for the remainder of the games? I have my doubts.
I don't know much about Hanifin having not seen him play, but I understand he brings a bit of offense (but not much defense). But we still have this plug named Stone on our third pairing, Brodie is still a ridiculously predictable, drop-passing, PP momentum killing, one-trick pony, deadly turnover machine and finished 289 out of 307 defenseman in the NHL last season in +/- (-16). Stone was down there at minus 11. Hanifin was worse than both. I know it's a team stat, but I would suggest that most defensemen with good +/- are typically on good teams, and the teams are usually better because of them. As far as Valimaki goes, we don't really know what he will be at the NHL level.
Back to the coaching overhaul...Glen Gulutzan actually has a better coaching record than Bill Peters in every category. I still think he's an awful coach, don't get me wrong, but what makes Bill Peters so much greater exactly? Below .500 career coaching record and no playoff appearances.
So I'm still a bit lost as to exactly what changes Treliving has made that are so great that they would lead you to believe that will bring dramatically different results. Because I'm pretty sure many people were saying the same things at the beginning of last season. We were supposed to be much better because we solidified our goaltending with Mike Smith and we had the best defense in the league. Not only were the pundits wrong on both counts, but our offense suffered. Before that, Hamilton and Hamonic were supposed to solidify our D core. Now our offense has improved, but I doubt that our defense and goaltending will hold up against the likes of San Jose, Vegas and Los Angeles. And we are certainly not going to qualify for the playoffs in a wildcard spot; the Central is just too good. So where does that leave us? Probably just somewhere similar to last year, we have to score 4-7 goals a game to win. Hey, I hope we do it, but I know that we cannot maintain that for an entire season; it's not possible, unless you think this forward group will produce one of the best offensive seasons in the history of the league.
Then again, after last season, almost anything slightly better will seem like a huge improvement. But I doubt it's enough to get us into the dance.