Quote:
Originally Posted by Psytic
Our D and Markstrom on Paper plus Johnny and Money should be enough to offset Mc D and Drai. Chucky, Backs and Lindholm should be able to carry the bag against Yamamoto and RNH. Its really not far off imo. Im not a Tippet fan but they just look better prepared this season than the Flames do to play which is scary since this is the Oil we are talking about.
The Flames really do need to figure out what they want to be though. Do they want to be an up-tempo speedy team like Montreal? Than they need the right Coach and a few more speedsters to pull it off. Do they want to go full 2012 Coyotes ? Then they need to get some more Lindholm / Forsberg / responsible 2 way types. They are stuck in the middle right now and good at neither style of play , with a coach that isn't good either way. The team is like a mixed bag of big and small, slugs and speedsters. Its all over the map with no identity as posters have noted before.
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On paper I agree that the Flames are even or better than the Oilers. But I do think that the impact on filling hole on each teams roster favors the Oilers. By adding Yaomoto to their roster it has allowed the Oilers to create 2 good lines rather than having McDavid and Draisaitl play together and only have 1 good line. If they have another good prospect winger come through their system it will allow them to improve more so than the Flames at this point. Good thing for us Nuge is a UFA and our top 3 centers make less than their top 2. If Nuge gets paid more than Tkachuk makes it will make things toough for them moving forward for the cap.
But for me this is the advantage of having Elite centers. Teams that have 1 or 2 elite centers need to have 4 good wingers and 2 lines of depth that just needs to bring energy and not give up goals. The flames need to create 3 good lines as they have 3 very good centers but none are elite. They need 6 good wingers to create 3 lines to match these teams. It's harder to do that IMO as almost all GM's make a bad move or 2 and when that happens we are essentially throwing out 2 good lines every night and can't seem to complete the 3rd one
Lucic is that player for us due to the Neal signing. Mangiapane and Dube have helped complete 2 lines but for me Lucic and now Bennett issues have left us with 2 good lines and there always seem to be 1 player and Lucic in the top 9 that don't belong. We now are rolling 2 inferior top 2 lines and a 3rd line no better than the rest.
Our d would be eilte of Gio was 3 years younger but for me Hanifin and Tanev is our best pairing now and the other 2 pairings are ok but they aren't difference makers either. Teams that have 2 good lines are getting good ice against average pairings and they aren't able to shut down lines that have McDavid or Draisaitl on it
Markstrom is great but he can only do so much