Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
This thread is at least half a day premature, maybe more 
One thought experiment though on this Good Friday.
Do the Flames go from a mediocre centre ice lineup with Monahan-Backlund-Janko-Ryan to a very strong one with Lindholm-Monahan-Backlund/Janko-Ryan?
Treliving could use Brodie+ to fix the hole at RW that moving Lindholm out of there would create.
Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk
gives Gaudreau two players who excel in physical puck battles since that is Gaudreau's biggest weakness. All 3 players can pass and shoot. A true triple threat line.
Bennett-Monahan-Czarnik/Dube/Mangiapane
Bennett gives the line some grit and bite. Czarnik/Dube can be a playmaker and Monahan works as a finisher. If we could manufacture a true secondary scoring threat line that would be where we become extremely hard to check. Bennett and Czarnik/Dube/Mangiapane would have to take steps forward
Jankowski-Backlund-Frolik
What a shutdown line! And if Backlund/Frolik are on the 3rd line their mediocre offensive production is just fine coming from there.
4th line hasn't been a problem. Ryan-Hathaway and whoever on LW.
Or just keep the Gaudreau-Monahan line together and have Lindholm centre another scoring line with Backlund on the 3rd.
Bennett-Lindholm-Tkachuk
Gaudreau-Monahan-????
????-Backlund-Frolik
Then again Frolik is probably gone this summer you'd think. |
Lindholm is not the answer to the flames centre ice woes.
The Flames need a top tier centre. Assembling a collection of middling centres isn't going to do it. The only team that has sort of made that work is Nashville, and I don't see a ton of similarities between the two organizations.
I like Lindholm a lot, but I see him as a backlund-esque player, which is not getting it done.
If you're going to keep Monahan you need to add a centre that brings basically all the qualities that he doesn't, but who still also brings goals and points. So maybe the centre the flames acquire isn't a 40 goal 100 point player, but a 30 goal Kadri type might be workable.
I would be using Backlund as my trade bait to acquire a top flight centre.
The more I think about it, the best solution in terms of availability, skill, cap and term might be Getzlaf.
2 Years left at 8.2 but a final year salary of just 6 million.