Do you think the Flames will contend for the Cup with this core?

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Ragnar

I don't think we can contend for the cup with Monahan as our #1 centre.

I love the guy and he scores some clutch goals but he doesn't drive the play what so ever...

It is crazy how much Sean Monahan is under appreciated on this board. He doesn’t “drive the play”? That is utter nonsense. When he was shut down last season his line mates couldn’t generate offence to save their lives. As good as Gaudreau is, without Monahan he went pointless in five games before scoring a goal and an assist in the meaningless season-ender.

Monahan is a damn good player, and while he is not flashy he is perfectly capable of driving his own line.

[ricardodw]

It depends on how they come together as a team.

Will someone (or 2-3 someones) on the ice react when someone runs a goalie or a skilled player? or will they look for Hathaway or Prout to respond in due course? Will they have to dress Prout?

[Sylvanfan]

I'm more concerned with whether a real good 2C option will emerge out of Lindholm or Jankowski. As others have mentioned Bennett not having established himself has put a damper on things. Backlund would be a really good 3C but as a 2C I think thats not really good enough to be an elite level contender.

[Flamescuprun2018]

Coaching and goaltending remain the question marks for me. Age range of core is terrific other than Gio and Smith. Salary structure of team now balanced with room to sign core members for medium term. Tre has demonstrated he can add a piece every year as needed and is a wizard at RFA contracts.

Who is Bill Peters? Is he an elite coach handcuffed in Carolina for four years by near league minimum team budget and lousy goalie save percentage?

If we divide his points per season/team salary during his four years in Carolina I think he comes out in the top 15 or even top 10. Same metric applies to his points per season/team goalie SV%.

Does he have the right personality to drive this core into nightly work ethic and more importantly does he make believers in themselves that they are elite. He does seem a bit Sutteresque.

I think the assistant coaches are an upgrade but time will tell.

Really curious to see if Huska can help Hanifin along and get one of our 3 D prospects to their potential. We need another D core piece beyond Hanifin.

Is Geoff Ward a PP specialist wizard. We will know soon if we see creative adjustments to PP as needed. Want to see Hanifin do the entries and Neal one timers on his off wing on PP1. Tkachuk or Lindholm in front for deflections for PP1 and PP2.

Rittich seems to be all but forgotten but his SV% was terrific with the exception of five really bad starts. His good start % per game was 10th in the league last year for goalies who played 20 or more games. He had higher good start percentage than Miller or Saros as backups. If he could take the next step...

[Southside]

I see the Hockey News have the Flames winning the Pacific and losing to Winnipeg in the Western Conference final.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

It is crazy how much Sean Monahan is under appreciated on this board. He doesn’t “drive the play”? That is utter nonsense. When he was shut down last season his line mates couldn’t generate offence to save their lives. As good as Gaudreau is, without Monahan he went pointless in five games before scoring a goal and an assist in the meaningless season-ender.

Monahan is a damn good player, and while he is not flashy he is perfectly capable of driving his own line.

It really is amazing.

On Feb 25th, 3/4 of the way through the season, he was sitting 10th in goals and 22nd in points, among all players - 6th and 15th among Cs.

Some of the Cs (using nhl.com listings) he was ahead of in points:

Draisaitl, Karlsson, Seguin, Bergeron, Eichel, Matthews, Marner, Scheifele, Backstrom

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

I'm more concerned with whether a real good 2C option will emerge out of Lindholm or Jankowski. As others have mentioned Bennett not having established himself has put a damper on things. Backlund would be a really good 3C but as a 2C I think thats not really good enough to be an elite level contender.

Exactly. For me, it isn't about where Monahan ranks as a C, it is about total depth at the position.

We have Monahan and Backlund, but we need another solid 2/3 guy. And there are lots of candidates now. Even though some are going to play wing this year (or at least to start), there are now some options for development, and some depth. Between:

Monahan 24
Backlund 29
Lindholm 23
Jankowski 24
Bennett 22
Ryan 31 and
Lazar 23

surely to God we can develop that into solid depth down the middle

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

It is crazy how much Sean Monahan is under appreciated on this board. He doesn’t “drive the play”? That is utter nonsense. When he was shut down last season his line mates couldn’t generate offence to save their lives. As good as Gaudreau is, without Monahan he went pointless in five games before scoring a goal and an assist in the meaningless season-ender.

Monahan is a damn good player, and while he is not flashy he is perfectly capable of driving his own line.

Maybe it was coaching but Monahan has minimal ice time without Gaudreau.

So there is no proof that Monahan could drive a line. There have been stretches where Gaudreau/Monahan have been very sub par ( example: all of 2015-16 on the road) where most coaches likely would have changed up the lines to get his best players contributing.

The other part that depreciated Monahan Appreciation scale is his lack of PK / end of game protecting a lead time.

Jankowski as a rookie got a minute/game on the PK ... Monahan 17 seconds.

Not saying that he can't kill penalties or play well enough to match up against top lines but the ice time given on the PK suggests some defensive weakness.


When comparing him to Johansson and Karlsson: they both are on the #2 PK. It would hard to imagine Johansson not on the ice for a defense zone faceoff for the last minute of a Nashville one goal lead and Kopitar, Getzlaff, Schiefele Mackinnon out looking for the tying goal for the other team.

[the2bears]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

Not saying that he can't kill penalties or play well enough to match up against top lines but the ice time given on the PK suggests some defensive weakness.

Maybe keep him fresh for 5v5 and PP time?

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

Maybe it was coaching but Monahan has minimal ice time without Gaudreau.

So there is no proof that Monahan could drive a line. There have been stretches where Gaudreau/Monahan have been very sub par ( example: all of 2015-16 on the road) where most coaches likely would have changed up the lines to get his best players contributing.

The other part that depreciated Monahan Appreciation scale is his lack of PK / end of game protecting a lead time.

Jankowski as a rookie got a minute/game on the PK ... Monahan 17 seconds.

Not saying that he can't kill penalties or play well enough to match up against top lines but the ice time given on the PK suggests some defensive weakness.


When comparing him to Johansson and Karlsson: they both are on the #2 PK. It would hard to imagine Johansson not on the ice for a defense zone faceoff for the last minute of a Nashville one goal lead and Kopitar, Getzlaff, Schiefele Mackinnon out looking for the tying goal for the other team.

This kind of all goes back to the point I just made about centre depth...

I don't care if Monahan kills penalties or not. I don't care if Monahan is out on the ice for the last minute of a game when we have the lead. I don't care if Monahan is great at faceoffs.

What I think matters is that you have someone for every role. I care that the team can kill penalties and win faceoffs and protect a lead.

Can Lindholm and Backlund kill penalties? Great, then Monahan and Ryan (or whoever) can take the PP.

Can Monahan win draws on the weak side? No? Then use Lindholm or Ryan.

Is Monahan best used head to head against the other team's top line? No? Then use Backlund's line, and have Monahan go up against someone else.

If you have solid depth at C, you can spread the needs around. As long as you're winning battles, who cares whether Monahan kills penalties or not?

[dino7c]

What top center doesn't play with a good winger? Most team have at least two good forwards. If anything Sean has been hurt by all the 3rd and 4th liners who have played on his right side.

Not to mention he scored 20 when JG was at BC.

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by Southside

I see the Hockey News have the Flames winning the Pacific and losing to Winnipeg in the Western Conference final.

I'm okay with that.

[jayswin]

I think we will become a pretty steady playoff team under this rebuild, likely starting this year. Unfortunately, certain things need to happen in a rebuild to become a contender and we majorly whiffed on our franchises highest draft pick in history.

We're one star/elite scoring forward away, imo, and Bennett was projected to push Monahan for the number 1 scoring centre role. That would have been it right there.

[Love]

If your #1 center is a tap-in artist unfortunately that isn't enough. And he's not elite defensively either.

2018 Capitals had Kuznetsov & Backstrom. Monahan would be the #3 center.

2009/2016/2017 Penguins had Crosby & Malkin. Monahan would clearly be the #3 center

2012 & 2014 Kings both had Kopitar who's like a Gaudreau type player with elite defense in Monahan's body. Much better. 2012 Kings had Richards, who Monahan is better than, but Richards also had an insane playoffs so they're probably comparable just for everything else Mike Richards brings you.

On the 2014 Kings, Jeff Carter is better. #3 center.

2011 Bruins had Bergeron & Krejci which is probably the closest situation to us, just buffed. Bergeron is an upgraded Backlund and Krejci & Monahan are fairly similar, just Krejci is much more offensively gifted and has proven he can drive his own life in the playoffs and yield results. Monahan would be the #3 center, but it's close.

Wings had Datsyuk & Zetterberg..... Etc

Monahan is not the answer. We all love the guy. He's the face of our rebuild. Our first sight of the light at the end of the tunnel after all those bleak years, but just being objective he isn't good enough. He doesn't drive play well enough to be that guy. He can't dominate a shift or take over a game. Without a dynamic #1 center this team will for the rest of this core's lifespan be 'good, but not good enough'.

[GranteedEV]

Way I see it, the Flames lack a modern top line. Yes, they have an excellent scoring line, let's say that's Gaudreau-Monahan-X. On a true contender though, this is probably more of a pure offensive line, like:

Kane's line in Chicago
Malkin's line in Pittsburgh
Ovechkin-Kuznetsov's in Washington
Lucic-Krejci-Horton in Boston.
Carter in L.A.

The problem is, those contenders had another complete line that allowed that line to be a scoring line. And the interesting thing about that last one is that Carter put up huge numbers in Philly not unlike Monahan has in recent years, but Carter's kind of settled down as the role was forced to shrink, although he did lead the Kings in scoring two years ago. We don't have a line that can reduce the role of Gaudreau and Monahan, which makes us easy to match up to.

Lines like:

Saad-Toews-Hossa
Crosby's line
Marchand / Bergeron / (Seguin/ Pastrnak)
Kopitar's line
Burakovsky Backstrom Oshie

These are the "dominant" line we lack, and I don't think I need to highlight the quality of center driving them.



The closest thing we've had to that is the 3M line when it was rolling two years ago, but even they disappeared in the playoffs that year. If Tkachuk-Backlund-X can be that "dominant" line then maybe I can see it. However I think there's a bit of a tier difference between Backlund and the centers in group B. But maybe that huge gap narrows with a better winger than Frolik on the right side, especially if it's a sniper like Neal. *shrug*

Ideally the team lets Bennett fly centering Tkachuk, as he's got that dynamic skillset and two-way game to drive this kind of line with some quality wingers. If a Tkachuk-Bennett-X line can build some chemistry, I see a much higher ceiling for this team as Bennett is more in the stylistic mold of those play-driving centers in the second group (not to take away from Kuznetsov and Malkin in the first group, obviously). A Tkachuk-Bennett-Lindholm line could hypothetically have a similar dominant game to the Saad-Toews-Hossa line, although that's because I think the world of Tkachuk and Bennett. Maybe that doesn't happen immediately this year, but if there's any progress in that direction my optimism would rise significantly.

Then suddenly you'd have insane depth as Backlund is still in my eye a very good top six forward and anyone flanking him would get that Backlund boost. I'd be open to seeing what a Jankowski-Backlund-Czarnik line can do. You'd have a vet there with the two less established guys letting them play more freely, while learning fine details from him.

As far as our D core goes, the biggest question marks are

A) whether the Hanifin-Hamonic pair can hold down the fort. Hanifin's been very sheltered and according to Canes fans has poor gap control, and Hamonic's struggled his own way in the last three seasons - especially in terms of gap control (he did have some very games last year in this area, so the hope is that he improves his consistency for a full 82 games) but also being more solid offensively.

B) Whether Peters can figured out a better way to get the D involved. And part of that starts way in the D zone with not over-using Smith's puck handling and leaving our Dmen flat-footed, but extends out to the offensive zone.


Goaltending in a long term is a crap shoot. IDK.

I think the Flames are a playoff team, but to be a contender they need Bennett to play center in a top six role and excel in that role.

[Love]

And I harp on Monahan because we have basically everything else. Elite wingers, check (Gaudreau & Tkachuk). Norris caliber type defender, check (Gio AKA the most underrated player of his generation). Depth at both defense & offense, check. Smith is a question mark too, but he's always performed well in the playoffs and he's about as good as a Crawford or any other goalie when he's on his game. The last burning hole lies at 1C.

[GreenLantern2814]

Had this organization had a centre as good as Sean Monahan in 1998, we as a fanbase would not have spent the next thirteen years screaming into the void about Iginla not having a #1C.

But they didn't, and we did, and we can't recognize what we've never had.

Monahan is easily the best centre the team has employed since Nieuwendyk, and he's about to enter his 24 year old season.

Just for comparison:

393 GP 138G 143A 281 PTS
388 GP 122G 145A 267 PTS

The first player is Monahan, the second is Iginla. Both entered the league at 19. Monahan of course has spent his entire career as a centre, and he's outproducing the best player in franchise history.

"Not a true #1" indeed.

[Love]

Imagine the #'s Iginla would put up with even Hudler, let alone Gaudreau, Hamilton, Gio etc.

[GreenLantern2814]

It's worth mentioning, for those concerned about Mike Smith's age. A not insignificant number of 35+ year old tenders have played in the Finals.

Roloson was 36 during the Oiler run.
Osgood went to back-to-back SCFs at 35 and 36.
Tim Thomas won the Vezina and the Con Smythe in his 36th year.
Old Man Marty Brodeur nearly took the Devils to the promised land at 39.

Honorable mentions: Fleury and Rinne both did it at 33.

It's not impossible, but it's also not probable. The biggest area of need is, unquestionably, a long-term starting goalie.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Saying he’s a tap in artist is a pretty horrible description
The guy scores a lot with an elite release, ability to find open high scoring spaces and ability to pick the corners
He may not be perfect but I don’t see why folks need to exaggerate to make their point
Tap in artist? That’s laughable