Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
The other thing about adding Pettersson, or making the shift to adding to this team as a opposed to continuing to rebuild is: while the goaltending has been great, and Wolf is looking like everything we hoped he could be, people need to remember that he is still being sheltered by Huska (another reason why Huska is doing a great job).
Lots of people calling for Wolf to play more, but for a kid his age, it is better to acclimatize to the NHL slowly. Huska is only giving him half the games, and most of those are at home, where the Flames have been pretty damn terrific most of the time. Which I believe is great coaching.
All this talk that the Flames aren't going to get any worse, and we should start adding, assumes that Wolf can carry the load as a #1. IMO, it is too early to throw that on him. This is still his first full season in the NHL. Huska is doing it right, and we need to remain patient.
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It’s not that we need to add now to get better this season. It’s the fact that we’re just unlikely to crater barring some unforeseen injury so we should be prepared and open to alternative ways to build the team (including trading for a young or prime age #1 center, a rarely available asset).
Just because you nab Petterson (for example) doesn’t mean you kick out the training wheels and throw Wolf to the wolves. You still keep your development strategy going.
But the reality is that if Wolf stays on this trajectory it’s going to be very, very hard to get a lot worse as he continues to get better. Sure, Andersson getting traded hurts and some guys get older, but all it takes is having the younger guys take a step and you find yourself right back to where you are. It’s not like everyone is having a career year.
I think Zary, Wolf, Pospisil, and Coronato will all be better next year. Then you have wildcards in Parekh, Kerins, Honzek, Solo, etc that could pop. Plus you have Huberdeau finding his game again and a mountain of cap space that’s not just going to go completely unspent. Plus a great coach.
So maybe things so sideways and they fall off. But people have been predicting them to be worse than they are since the beginning of the season. Every week is just one week away from when the wheels start to fall off… unless they don’t.