Quote:
Originally Posted by djsFlames
Over 82?
Gaudreau will be a 20 goal guy
Lindholm will be a 20 goal guy
Tkachuk will be a 20 goal guy
Mangiapane at his trajectory will be a 20 goal guy
Coleman playing deeper down a roster can score 20
Even without Monahan, there are goals to be found
The trick is having someone that can produce consistently night to night. That's what consistutes game breaking talent. Being able to rely on a goal from that guy or those guys to help swing the game in your favor. Depth is there to supplement from time to time but the top dogs have to put up many more nights than not.
Most of these core guys put up numbers but they're streaky in the way they get there. They pile up multi point games over a batch then go ice cold for a stretch after it. In order to win lots of games, you require consistency from those players. If we're relying on guys like Lucic and even Dube to keep us in games then we're in tough.
Production from the blue line will be down without Gio and Brodie's 40+ points apiece that we used to be able to bank on, so the forwards coming through for us is even more important now. Hanifin may put up 30, but aside from Andersson taking the step we all think he can, offense is pretty dried up back there. And that used to be a strength that helped compensate for our forward group.
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I'll go through the line up with rough estimates based on their previous years production and age.
Forwards:
Gaudreau - 23
Lindholm - 28
Tkachuk - 25
Monahan - 20
Mangiapane - 28
Dube - 13
Backlund - 16
Coleman - 20
Lewis - 5
Lucic - 10
Pitlick - 8
Ritchie - 4
Gawdin - 3
Defence:
Andersson - 6
Hanifin - 5
Zadorov - 4
Tanev - 2
Kylington - 2
Gudbranson - 1
Stone - 2
Valimaki - 3
That's 228 goals, that's about 2.78 a game. Which is basically right in line with how many goals the Flames scored last year 156 goals over 56 games (2.79 goals/game).
Obviously some guys might out perform those numbers, like Coleman, Dube and maybe Tkachuk. But there will no doubt be injuries along the way.
However I see a team that will average less than 3 goals a game and likely finish 16-18th in the league standings.