Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandman
A lot of posters are saying this is our worst off-season in a long time, but this is how I look at it:
1)We got better in goal with the additions of Vladar and Werner-one or both will shock and surprise. Marky is of course going to be healthy to start this year.
2)We drafted a future star in Coronato, and did very well with picking up Whynot, Jordan, Beck,and especially Stromgren.
3)We signed one of the most sought-after free agents on the market in Blake Coleman-a 2-time Stanley Cup champ. He was supposed to make north of 6M/per, but we got him for under 5M. Great defensive player with grit, and provides offense. Those who are unhappy with this signing should give their heads a shake.
4)We got bigger, meaner, and harder to play against.
5)We hired an experienced associate coach in Muller.
The one real negative is that we lost the offense from the backend that Gio provided, and we haven't replaced it yet-unless a few young guys can step up. I think we can all agree though, that he was becoming an adventure defensively anyway.
We shouldn't forget that we also signed 2 more of the most sought-after Free Agents last year with Marky and Tanev.
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All these are really optimistic views. In your opinion mine will me pessimistic views but I'll provide some explanation...
1) Are Vladar / Werner actually better than Rittich? At best this is a wash. Marky could continue to have his injury issues and you're left with all-rookie G tandem, hoping one of them hangs on.
2) None of those guys will help next year or who knows when. Flames have been making these "great" late round picks for a lot of years now...yet this years Forward group will feature a combo of Lucic / Pitlick / Ritchie / Richardson / Lewis...D will feature the like of Gudbransson / Stone / Zadarov / Welenski in some capacity. They have 6 drafted forwards signed to top club, 3 (Johnny, Monahan, Backlund) joined the team more than 7-8 years ago. Dube, Mangiapane and Tkachuk are the other 3. 3 of the 9 dmen are drafted by the team, one Kylington will likely be in the minors, Valimaki in and out of the lineup. Not a ringing endorsement for your drafted players.
3) Coleman is no different then Brouwer / Raymond / Neal. This is a retirement contract. He doesn't have the likes of Kucherov / Stamkos / Point etc playing above him. Watch his give a F meter take a nose dive when he sees the Flames play selfishly. This is not a team built to win in 4-5 years, rather staring at an ugly re-build. I guess his contract won't matter too much in the long run when Gaudreau / Tkachuk / Monahan etc are gone. He's not a difference-maker, Flames are a lot like the Devils then the Lightning.
4) We got slower. The league is getting faster. Size won't matter when they're giving up multiple PPs off of tripping, interference penalties. Speed was already an issue for this team and it got worse.
5) No idea what we have in Muller. No idea what he'll be in charge of. His 3 seasons as NHL HC, missed playoffs all 3 years. He wants to be a HC, he got passed over in St.Louis so he left then in Montreal it happened again so he left again. He came to Calgary cuz he sees Sutter being a 3 year thing, he wants the job when Sutter retires.
They need a fresh approach from top to bottom but it won't happen anytime soon.