Quote:
Originally Posted by CanadaMatt
This. Not to mention, other teams are strengthening.
So far this off season, the flames have added Talbot (who we all laughed at last year) Lucic (who we all laughed at last year) and a bunch of AHLers
...while losing Hathaway and likely one of Frolik/Brodie just to keep our RFA’s.
There’s still time, but the best opportunities to strengthen have likely passed. While I don’t think anyone’s standing on centre street bridge ready to jump off, it’s reasonable (IMHO) to be concerned.
Fingers crossed for some salary cap relief at Arbitration and Chucky negotiations. Getting good contracts with these players is critical to flames success in 19/20
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Second overall in the NHL. Usually teams that finish there dont need to make massive adds.
Teams are trying to keep up with us. We scored enough, had adequate tending but needed toughness. As much as Lucic isn't what he was, he is one of the handful of most intimidating players in the league. So we're addressing a need, whereas Neal didn't add anything really. Adding a bigger middle six winger at some point as well as the addition by subtraction of shipping out Neal could be the tinkering that a 2nd overall team that just played a bit too small needs to do.
More than any free agent they could throw a wad of cash at, what the flames could benefit most from is experience.
This desperation to do some radical face lift every off season is getting old. We're on the right path, as confirmed by the standings. The playoff success takes figuring out.
Every cup winning team in recent memory had to go through their trials with the same core over a period of time before figuring it out. I think this is one of those times where we have to exercise patience and not overreact to these deals. Teams that are poised to make noise don't usually have huge flashy offseasons. The flames are coming into that category and aside from nabbing one more top 6 forward somewhere, it's a case of tinkering going forward from here.