Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
It is not about making improvements or getting him to score more goals. Of course with reduced TOI and opportunity, his stats will negatively affected. Of course.
What people are saying is that Brouwer was fine as a 4th liner, but underwhelming whenever Gulutzan played him above that, especially on the PP. As a 4th liner, Brouwer is a fairly decent player who stood up for a few team mates over the last couple of seasons, and played fairly strong defence.
Nobody is expecting an increase in goals playing STRICTLY off the 4th line.
As for the RFAs today, remember that this has nothing to do with how negotiations are going. This is a safety mechanism for all of them to ensure that they make available an agreed-upon tool. If they didn't file, and then suddenly negotiations went south, they would not be able to use arbitration to remedy a contract impasse. So nobody freak out.
Also, Treliving was a very busy body traveling and trying to sign these UFAs, and he had stated that the focus will now shift to the RFAs. I would be surprised if any actually end up in arbitration.
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Yeah I'm not worried about the arbitrations.
I think if Brouwer isn't going to improve (in all likelihood, that's the case), then it's better to give his ice time to someone who:
1) Needs more NHL ice time, such as Mangiapane
2) Might improve at the NHL level, such as Lazar
3) Can handle the role just as well, if not better, but could serve as a long term depth Flame, such as Hathaway
I think every Flames fan agrees Brouwer is not in the Flames long term vision. So why delay the inevitable, perhaps burning a bridge or development opportunity for a younger or better player along the way?