Quote:
Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus
A great activity for a fan is to scan the lineups of the top 5 or 6 teams in the league and you'll quickly realize that outside of Johnny, Tkachuk and Lindholm, the Flames just don't have enough game breaking skill to make up for the complete AHL level bottom 6: Lucic, Janko, Reider, Rinaldo, Frolik, simply do not cut it. Monahan is also simply not what a contending team needs in a top line centre at this point either. His "improved three-zone play" this year is now up to average at best from terrible, and in achieving this, he's lost his one true asset - finishing plays in tight.
There are just way too many issues that don't even touch on the compete level and hate to lose comments the coaching staff is throwing around at will these days. Unless something significant happens via a trade, I don't see this season turning around, but you can hope that a bad year will net the team a hail mary draft pick that injects a lottery pick or significant deadline move to turn things around for next season. One thing is for sure, this better not fall on the scalp of another coaching staff.
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I'd say it had better not
only fall on the head of yet another head coach. For all the reasons you mentioned, firing Peters without addressing any of the other problems would be asinine, and that's without even considering whether ownership would allow it.
We can go round and round about whether Monahan is an elite #1 C. The fact is, he's not doing anything offensively right now and didn't deliver in crunch time last season. And the Flames don't have another high-flight centre to pick up the slack when Monahan slumps like most players do.
Tkachuk, as great as he is, isn't fast. Monahan's not fast. Lucic is downright slow. No other forward outside of bit pieces Reider and Czarnik have gamebreaking speed; Gaudreau is the closest they have, and obviously he's not been highly productive on a consistent basis since January. The lack of high end speed up front is made more glaring by the dearth of great two-way forwards like the Blues & Bruins have.
Another (preferably right-handed) sniper is something else that's missing, although it's easy to say that with the team struggling to manage even one measly goal a game. Maybe Monahan, Lindholm & Tkachuk are enough, or maybe someone who can wire one-timers like a Stamkos, Laine or Tarasenko would at very least get the PP going. Trading for one is going to be pretty much impossible without moving Gaudreau, and doing that would take away the best playmaker on the roster.
On paper, the defence is fine albeit thin. There's some good mobility back there, and the team is probably missing Brodie. His suffering might also be impacting the guys mentally, as most of this losing streak has occurred during his absence. Treliving has drafted just one defenceman in the last three drafts, I believe, and in 2016 took a guy in Fox who ended up not wanting to sign. With Valimaki hurt, there's a big nothing in terms of quality D prospects to fill in. Yelesin's signing was a good move, but they've got to get more D prospects in addition to immediate forward help.
A few outstanding months in '18-19 masked the Flames' deficiencies, and then the Avs exposed them in the playoffs. As poorly as they're playing, the team isn't this bad; nor are they anywhere near contender status.