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Originally Posted by Oil Stain
It will be very interesting to watch the Flames this season. I could easily see them in the playoffs, or flaming out.
One interesting note. Iginla and Kopitar in their last year with Sutter as coach: 67 and 52 points respectively. The first year with a new coach: 94 and 92 points. Huberdeau is a nice sleeper pick for your fantasy hockey league IMO.
My biggest concern for the Flames would be something that many Flames fans are excited about. Coronato, Pelletier, Duehr, Ruzicka. As it stands the Flames are poised to start the season with what amounts to four rookie forwards. Ruzicka is an exception in that he has basically a season full of games, but hasn't established himself as an everyday player.
A couple of injuries to any of the other forwards and then you are looking at 5-6 rookies in the lineup at forward. Rookies generally aren't great at helping to win hockey games.
Fancy stats are another thing to watch. Last season the underlying stats were stellar. I think that is in part to Sutter being an exceptional coach, but also I think his system inflates those numbers to some extent.
Both Calgary and LA had a big drop off in fancies after Sutter left the bench. LA had a massive dead cat bounce and went from 85 points to 108 or something with awful underlying numbers then proceeded to fall off a cliff the next season. Calgary on the other hand just went to middle of the pack in underlying numbers and sagged just a bit in the standings.
Just like last season Calgary is a team that could swing either way. If I had to bet on it, I'd probably go with the Flames supplanting Seattle as the 4th seed in the division and making the playoffs.
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I know we're completely derailing this thread, so that's the last post I'll add about this. First of all, I agree that Huberdeau can rebound, and I have high hopes for Dube. That said, I don't expect most of our top players to have career years. Some players will be better and some will be worse than last year. How Huska and his system will affect our players still remains as an unknown.
As for the prospects not helping us win games, here we'll have to disagree. Pelletier looked like a polished NHLer and was doing a lot of right things away from the puck. Duehr was the motor that was driving that 4th line after he got on it, and his play was shifting momentum in our favor game in and game out. Coronato and Ruzicka are unknowns, but I really liked how Coronato's line was pushing the puck up the ice in his one game against SJ. I don't think we'll lose many games because of rookie mistakes, but I do expect the PK to be worse.
As an aside: I'm pretty sure that Iggy's point jump had something to do with a certain Alex Tanguay signing with us that off-season, and Huselius breaking out after getting acclimated.