[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by dino7c

I already said he is playing far better than he ever has. I am happily surprised by how well he is playing, hope he keep sit up.

you of all people shouldn't be pulling up old posts to see how well they have aged...how did you feel about this team over the summer?

"playing better than he ever has" might have some correlation to "not sitting in the pressbox", no? But you openly declared any fans who liked the player to be overrating him, and used the NHL teams not claiming hom as evidence of that. Now you're throwing shade at them for doing so... it's really wierd.

As for me?

You are MORE than welcome to tell me how I felt about the team over the summer.

But I assume what I would have said was:

I felt this core was worth more than what Geoff Ward got out of them, and that Markstrom let Sutter down last year.

I felt the Coleman signing had too much term, and that even if he's effective up to around age 32, this is a contract that takes him to age 35. Did my opinion of him change? No. He's still a middle sixer who is signed to age 35.

I felt the depth signings (Zadorov/Gudbranson/Pitlick/Lewis) were underwhelming. I still think they are. Some of those guys have been okay, and Pitlick might have a fit. But I didn't walk away from this road trip thinking any of those was the difference. Are the even improvements on Nordstrom or Nesterov? I'm not sold. If we went into this game with Kylington-Tanev / Valimaki-Andersson / Mackey-Stone I actually think we get the same results, and probably more zonetime.

I'm pleasantly surprised by the level of play Markstrom has given us these past two games, but goalies are voodoo, especially one who gets hurt once a year.

I felt like they needed to add a center the calibre of Eichel if they want to go deep in the playoffs. I still do. The teams that I believe should go deep have foundational guys like Point, Aho, Barkov at centre.

I felt Lindholm isn't really the type of player should should be your best center because he's weak in transition, but he's an awesome 1B or 2. I still do like him as a player, and maybe you could fluke into an ROR in St. Louis situation where everything goes right, but it wouldn't be my strategy because Lindholm has largely disappeared in past playoffs (although so did ROR)

I felt the Flames needed to use Dube at centre instead of wasting him away at wing. I'm absolutely ecstatic that for the first time in half a decade they're actually coached by someone brave enough to do the thing.

I felt that the Flames may have deserved a better outcome in 2016-17 playoffs if not for Gulutzan/Elliott, that Peters+Hanifin+Hamonic were almost solely responsible for the 2018-19 playoffs, and Talbot's game 6 meltdown the difference in the 2019-20 playoffs. I've always been a defender of the individuals on this core, whether guys like Brodie, Gio, Bennett in the last, or Gaudreau, Mangiapane, Backlund, Lindholm, and Tkachuk on the present and have felt they've taken too much flack for things out of their control (not just coaching, but the team not having a number one centre).

I felt that if the Flames don't want to make any big moves (like Jack Eichel, who is still in play BTW), they're better off selling off parts of the roster to jostle for draft position if they can't acquire Eichel, because Lindholm-Monahan is not a sufficient 1-2 punch, whereas Wright-Lindholm-Backlund is a lot more of a legit foundation. Dube might throw a wrinkle in that since he brings legit speed, but the team never even hinted at Dube as a winger even though I could probably find a post of my own where I wanted that. And I still think the single sest path longterm is to aqcuire the first overall pick leading to Connor Bedard, but that's two years away so I'm not losing sleep over this season even if we get bounced in the first round again.

I am more than glad that Markstrom is finally being the better goaltender in games, which is what he is paid 6M to do. But I don't think I made any predictions or talent evaluations about him in the summer. I believe all I've ever said on the topic is that I distrusted Sigalet in the role of goalie coach - but he isn't presently in that role.

If any of the above is disingenuous - DO call me out. Find my summer posts. I don't like to be disingenuous, but perhaps I've forgotten something I've said.

As for this game itself? If I tell you that the Penguins were missing Crosby/Letang/Malkin/Carter and their goaltending was statistically weak yet they still put up 40+ shots on Markstrom, some highly dangerous, you know what you'll accuse me of? Being a Negative Nancy. Even though nothing I said is even an opinion let alone negative. Because that's your schtick in these win threads. To accuse any attempts at discussing what actually happened in a win to be negativity.

Originally Posted by dino7c

And then your buddy quoting me, I mean he has more "hasn't aged well" than almost anyone on this site.

Please provide examples. Because I feel like pretty much every strong position I've had, outside of dumb drunken stuff like "Flames should bring back Ian White" is still a position I'm pretty consistent about.