[dino7c]

Originally Posted by Savvy27

I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole trying to get a sense of the Flames offensive depth at forward, because in my mind I thought that they were relatively strong, so I wanted to do a comparison. Obviously, these are stats from one season (2020-2021) and it was a weird year too, but hopefully it is of some use. I started with the Avalanche because they are one of the top teams in the league and then I picked a few Pacific division teams including the Golden Knights because they have solid F depth and the Canucks and Kings because I often see them rated in the same middle area of the division as the Flames.

Gaudreau (0.88ppg) - Lindholm (0.84) - Tkachuk (0.77) - 0.83 avg
Mangiapane (0.57) - Monahan (0.56) - Coleman (0.56) - 0.56
Lucic (0.41) - Backlund (0.59) - Dube (0.43) - 0.48
Pitlick (0.29) - Richardson (0.24) - Lewis (0.18) - 0.24
12 F average 0.53 ppg

Colorado F Depth Chart
Landeskog (0.96ppg) - Mackinnon (1.35) - Rantanen (1.2) - 1.17
Compher (0.38) - Kadri (0.57) - Burakovsky (0.83) - 0.59
Newhook (0.5 rookie) - Jost (0.31) - Nichushkin (0.38) - 0.40
Maltsev (0.27) - Helm (0.17) - O'Connor (0.28) - 0.24
12 F average 0.60ppg

Vegas F Depth Chart
Pacioretty (1.06) - Stephenson (0.69) - Stone (1.11) - 0.95
Marchessault (0.80) - Karlsson (0.70) - Smith (0.47) - 0.66
Janmark (0.33) - Patrick (0.38) - Tuch (0.60) - 0.44
Carrier (0.29) - Roy (0.30) - Dadonov (0.36) - 0.32
12 F average 0.59ppg

Vancouver F Depth Chart
Miller (0.88) - Petterson (0.81) - Boeser (0.88) - 0.86
Hoglander (0.48) - Horvat (0.70) - Garland(0.80) - 0.63
Pearson (0.35) - Dickinson (0.29) - Podkolzin (est. 0.5) - 0.38
Motte (0.38) - Sutter (0.28) - Highmore(0.19) 0.28
12F average 0.55ppg

Los Angeles F Depth Chart
Iafallo (0.55) - Kopitar (0.89) - Brown (0.63) - 0.69
Kempe (0.52) - Danault (0.45) - Vilardi (0.43) - 0.47
Moore (0.41) - Byfield (0.5 est) - Grundstrom (0.24) - 0.23
Anderson-Dolan (0.32) - Lizotte (0.24) - Wagner (0.18) - .25
12F average 0.41ppg

Rankings
Overall F scoring avg:
1. Avs 0.60
2. Knights 0.59
3. Canucks 0.55
4. Flames 0.53
5. Kings 0.41

Top line ppg avg:
1. Avs 1.17
2. Knights 0.95
3. Canucks 0.86
4. Flames 0.83
5. Kings 0.69

Top 6 ppg avg:
1. Avs 0.88
2. Knights 0.81
3. Canucks 0.75
4. Flames 0.70
5. Kings 0.58

3rd line:
1. Flames 0.48
2. Knights 0.44
3. Avs 0.40
4. Canucks 0.38
5. Kings 0.23

This exercise was pretty disheartening to be honest. While the Flames aren't actually bad like the Kings (who may be a lot better as Byfield could pop and some of their guys are really just developing), they are clearly at a level below the Avs and Golden Knights and this is without considering that those teams have elite offensive defensemen, which the Flames clearly do not.

The Flames are going to be strong defensively, so they won't need as many goals as most other teams to win, but as has been mentioned consistently they need a lot to go right. The top line has to be much better and unless Monahan has a bounce back while Coleman and Mangiapane have career seasons, their second line is still an average one.

Their third line looks relatively good, but it's a third line and that advantage is a small one in an offensive sense. Not to mention I also included Lucic when chances are that he won't even play on that line. I tried to place players in this exercise where their ppg stats suggested because I don't know the other roster situations well enough to put everyone where their coaches prefer them.

Other thoughts:
-the Avs first line is a huge advantage for them... even the Golden Knights top unit pales in comparison
-the Avs depth does look like it took a pretty good hit this off-season though, Donskoi was a good player for them and I am skeptical they have been able to replace him
-the Canucks forward group is better offensively than I thought and they will probably have a few players bounce back really well after a tough year including Petterson if he ever signs
-the Kings are weaker than I thought and I think prognostications of their impending emergence are a little early
-the Golden Knights still have excellent depth despite now having multiple big ticket players on the roster. Peyton Krebs was excluded just because there were other reasonable players to put in there, but he could be a factor for them like some of the other rookies

When did the Avs join the pacific?