Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Flames are very much improved. One of the most improved teams in the league IMO. Are we banking on young players improving? Somewhat but we also have a lot of young players who are candidates to breakout. We're not counting on all of them to take a big step but its reasonable to think a couple will just due to the sheer volume of young players we have.
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Good post and I agree with most of what's said. Even prior to the off-season transactions, I thought the PP would improve as part of natural regression. New coaching staff and better offensive talent should definitely help ensure this.
I don't quite buy-in that Hanifin will balance out Dougie's loss over the next 1-3 years. IMO, despite some defensive flaws, Dougie is a definite top 20 D in the NHL based off his offense, skating, and ability to play tough competition. He probably jumps into top 10 once you factor in his great contract. Hanifin has been strongly sheltered and hasn't shown signs he can handle other team's top lines...yet.
Also, I'm a little leery of simply placing Brodie on the top line and assume all the magic he had with Gio will come back. That was a couple years ago and he's been a train wreck since that. This is the guy that most people wanted traded this off-season...and now he's been thrust into an even bigger role. With Gio getting older and Brodie more of a wildcard, our first pairing this year will likely have a hard time matching the first pairing output from last year.
I also agree with your thoughts on goaltending. We've invested a fairly substantial amount drafting higher end goalies so you need to give them a chance to develop. I would let them continue to battle it out in the back-up spot, otherwise all those draft picks were useless. I still think Treliving made a poor bet on Smith last off-season due to his age, contract, and injury history. Playoff hopes are so reliant on goaltending, our great team on paper may come crashing down with one injury or a poor performance from Smith. For that reason, the ideal off-season for me would have been to offload Smith and bring in a more reliable #1.
Overall though, the offense is definitely improved and that's been an area we've always been bad at. I'm just hoping we didn't shift our issues from offense to defense/goaltending. Treliving built up this team over the past couple years tapping heavily into our prospects and using up all our cap space though, so it'll be much harder to course correct moving forward.