Deadspin - Flames are boring trash

[Darth Tkachuk]

Who is this chump? Sounds like nothing more than a butthurt grease fanboy.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Keselke

Obviously the writing has an intentional tone to it, pretty funny the people harpooning it for not being serious journalism

I see a number of people harpooning the article for being an unfunny and uninformed piece that is intended as comedy. It misses the mark on several points, and none of them for "not being serious journalism."

"Teams You’ll Probably Only Have To Bother With For, Like, Five Playoff Games:"

Seems pretty spot on, given our ridiculous first round record.

There are four categories of teams in this lampoon:

· Teams you might be watching until June: TB, Toronto, Washington, Winnipeg, SJ, Boston, Pittsburgh and Vegas
· Teams you'll probably only have to bother with for, like, five playoff games: LA, Columbus, Minnesota, Colorado, Dallas, NJ
· The lunatic fringe; or, some oddball teams into which it might be worth investing some time: Anaheim, Philadelphia, Edmonton, Florida, StL, Vancouver
· Boring trash: NYR, Chicago, Calgary, Arizona, Detroit, Montreal, Ottawa, NYI

She did not group the Flames in "Teams you'll probably only have to bother with for, like, five playoff games." She grouped them with "Boring trash." Look at the teams in those groupings and tell me honestly if you think that is where the Flames best fit.

[Tyler]

Well, we were super boring to watch last year. Probably the worst entertainment value in years.

[cannon7]

Originally Posted by nik-

Proceed to get hyper defensive over random article saying mediocre franchise is mediocre

Homers be homers.

[d_phaneuf]

Originally Posted by rubecube

WYTS is a treasure. I look forward to it every year.

Magory only reason to read deadspin anymore

Hes great

[Red_Baron]

There wasn't any really good digs at any of the players so it shows that the author did not put much effort into the article. She picked the thread on Calgarypuck with the most pages, opened it and wrote the article about that. Her familiarity with Monahan's injury situation was vague, to put it nicely.

[Two Fivenagame]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Why do people keep saying this? It's not hard—let me show you:

The Flames made seismic changes to their whole roster, upgraded every forward line, have overhauled the coaching staff and graduated two rookies after on the basis of their exceptional preseason campaigns. If nothing else, this is a dramatically different team from last season. The results should likewise be dramatically different.

Agreed, however, the assessment was based on last season. And until this season gets going, it'll be hard to proclaim Tre's roster changes have vaulted the Calgary Flames into a playoff position.

Prove the article wrong.

[d_phaneuf]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

You are right. She is not whining, but then again, she is also not discussing the actual hockey team—AT ALL.

Thats not really the point of the article though, its not an in depth preview

[the2bears]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Poor reading comprehension really chaps my ass.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Two Fivenagame

Agreed, however, the assessment was based on last season. And until this season gets going, it'll be hard to proclaim Tre's roster changes have vaulted the Calgary Flames into a playoff position.

Prove the article wrong.

It's impossible to prove any predictions wrong until they have occurred, but I can prove that her attempt to satirize the Flames is uninformed, imbalanced, and thus not clever, or amusing. It's lazy. Here is the sum total of everything she has said pertaining to the quality of the team:

· The Flames are mediocre and will finish fifth in the Pacific Division
· Johnny Gaudreau is good, Sean Monahan is a quality centre if he can somehow manage to stay healthy. (Monahan failed to play in at least 81 games last season for the first time since he was a rookie).
· Tkachuk is an entertaining super-pest.

No mention of a coaching change. No mention of the significant roster turnover. Compare this with the vast majority of the other team previews:

Originally Posted by Lauren Thiesen

on the Toronto Maple Leafs: "Despite losing top goalscorer James van Riemsdyk in free agency, the signing of Tavares was the single highest-impact move that any NHL team could have made this offseason.

on the Vegas Golden Knights: "The Golden Knights traded a prospect in Nick Suzuki and a failed deadline acquisition in Tomas Tatar to Montreal in exchange for Max Pacioretty, who put up four straight 30-goal seasons until a down 2017–18. They also signed Paul Stastny, whose presence is a little bit more intangible than points-based at this moment in his career but should still partially cover for the departures of James Neal and David Perron."

on the SJ Sharks: "The Sharks were merely 'pretty good' as they exited the 2017–18 season nursing their wounds from their second-round loss to the Golden Knights. But since they made the blockbustingest trade of the summer by jailbreaking Erik Karlsson out of Ottawa in the final year of his deal, they’ve upgraded from 'solid West Coast team you’re obligated to half-heartedly notice' to 'hey, you might actually want to stay up to watch these guys.'"

on the LA Kings: "At 35, the all-time great Atlanta Thrasher is coming back to America, where he’ll play with the Kings for $6.25 million per year over the next three seasons, and inject some new(?) blood into this roster. Everything else in Los Angeles will be pretty much the same, so Kovalchuk is the difference-maker.'"

on the Columbus Blue Jackets: "They picked up a couple of depth guys—most notably Boston’s Riley Nash—to replace outgoing depth guys like Matt Calvert. And polarizing defenseman Jack Johnson finally left and went to Pittsburgh, which might be addition by subtraction."

on the Philadelphia Flyers: "If Giroux does suffer any type of drop-off, it mostly goes to #### for the Flyers, even if James van Riemsdyk has returned from Toronto to take some of the production load off their captain."

on the Edmonton Oilers: "If goaltender Cam Talbot refuses to recover from his 2017–18 campaign in which he inexplicably decided to play every game with his head upside down in a dumpster—or unless the newly arrived KHL netminder Mikko Koskinen does all right—nothing will change in Edmonton."

on the Florida Panthers: "Mike Hoffman ... came over from Ottawa and promises to score some goals as long as his wife stays off Instagram."

on the St Louis Blues: "Of their new free agent signings, the most exciting is left winger David Perron, who returns to the team after getting plucked up in the expansion draft by Vegas and proceeding to produce a career-best year. They also paid the massive expense of three players and two draft picks just to get sad Sabre Ryan O’Reilly, who could possibly be the epitome of a good stats/bad team guy but regardless will likely get to be the number-one center. With solid enough play from Allen, the Blues will be back to winning exactly two playoff games in no time."

on the Vancouver Canucks: "The team’s new face, Elias Pettersson is a 19-year-old forward who’s coming over after winning MVP last season in the Swedish league. Yes at age 19. So he’ll probably be at least halfway decent in North America, where he’s already doing pretty things."

[B]on the Buffalo Sabres[/I]: "Rasmus Dahlin, baby!!! The reward for Buffalo’s most recent tanking effort is just this absolutely incredible Swedish teen two-way defenseman who was completely dominant in his homeland’s league despite the fact that most kids his age should just be wasting their time getting high and climbing things."

on the Buffalo Sabres: "Rasmus Dahlin, baby!!! The reward for Buffalo’s most recent tanking effort is just this absolutely incredible Swedish teen two-way defenseman who was completely dominant in his homeland’s league despite the fact that most kids his age should just be wasting their time getting high and climbing things."

Whether intended to be funny or not, I consider it a GLARING omission to miss the most important questions facing the Flames heading into the season, which centre quite squarely on the significant changes they made over the summer. She somehow has managed to put her finger more-or-less on the pulse of most NHL teams, but clearly has no idea what is going on in Calgary.

There are plenty of things about which to be critical of the Flames. There is plenty going on with the roster as they head into the new season around which to satirize. Lauren Theisen has ignored all of them and produced a dumb and unfunny preview of the team.

[kukkudo]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Why do people keep saying this? It's not hard—let me show you:

The Flames made seismic changes to their whole roster, upgraded every forward line, have overhauled the coaching staff and graduated two rookies after on the basis of their exceptional preseason campaigns. If nothing else, this is a dramatically different team from last season. The results should likewise be dramatically different.

We've seen some nice Flames teams on paper that have failed. Now this team looks the best I have seen in years, if they do end up failing what will be the excuse?

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by d_phaneuf

Thats not really the point of the article though, its not an in depth preview

It's not? I read the entire thing and she spends a tonne of time talking about hockey, and about how all of the other teams in the NHL will fare on the ice.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by kukkudo

We've seen some nice Flames teams on paper that have failed. Now this team looks the best I have seen in years, if they do end up failing what will be the excuse?

I don't know. What is your point?

[kukkudo]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I don't know. What is your point?

Why are you so defensive? Relax dude.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by kukkudo

Why are you so defensive? Relax dude.

I'm perfectly relaxed, thanks. I just don't understand what you are getting at in your post. What is your point?

[JetsFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Why do people keep saying this? It's not hard—let me show you:

The Flames made seismic changes to their whole roster, upgraded every forward line, have overhauled the coaching staff and graduated two rookies after on the basis of their exceptional preseason campaigns. If nothing else, this is a dramatically different team from last season. The results should likewise be dramatically different.

So I'm clear, the premises of your argument are that the Flames have upgraded their roster and that they are a dramatically different team from last season, which leads you to conclude that they will have a dramatically different result? I assume you mean an improved result, since you mentioned that they improved their team.

Unfortunately, "seismic change" does not itself guarantee success. Overhauling the coaching staff doesn't guarantee success. Graduating rookies does not guarantee success. Significant roster turnover does not guarantee success. What have the Flames truly upgraded aside from their forward depth and Hanifin vs Hamilton?

Mike Smith is still a wildcard in my opinion, he is not getting any younger and he played terribly after his injury last year. We don't have a proven backup goalie, our defense played terrible in front of Smith last year. Even if Smith is great, is he going to be able to play in 70 games, stay healthy, and still be great? Will our backups hold up for the remainder of the games? I have my doubts.

I don't know much about Hanifin having not seen him play, but I understand he brings a bit of offense (but not much defense). But we still have this plug named Stone on our third pairing, Brodie is still a ridiculously predictable, drop-passing, PP momentum killing, one-trick pony, deadly turnover machine and finished 289 out of 307 defenseman in the NHL last season in +/- (-16). Stone was down there at minus 11. Hanifin was worse than both. I know it's a team stat, but I would suggest that most defensemen with good +/- are typically on good teams, and the teams are usually better because of them. As far as Valimaki goes, we don't really know what he will be at the NHL level.

Back to the coaching overhaul...Glen Gulutzan actually has a better coaching record than Bill Peters in every category. I still think he's an awful coach, don't get me wrong, but what makes Bill Peters so much greater exactly? Below .500 career coaching record and no playoff appearances.

So I'm still a bit lost as to exactly what changes Treliving has made that are so great that they would lead you to believe that will bring dramatically different results. Because I'm pretty sure many people were saying the same things at the beginning of last season. We were supposed to be much better because we solidified our goaltending with Mike Smith and we had the best defense in the league. Not only were the pundits wrong on both counts, but our offense suffered. Before that, Hamilton and Hamonic were supposed to solidify our D core. Now our offense has improved, but I doubt that our defense and goaltending will hold up against the likes of San Jose, Vegas and Los Angeles. And we are certainly not going to qualify for the playoffs in a wildcard spot; the Central is just too good. So where does that leave us? Probably just somewhere similar to last year, we have to score 4-7 goals a game to win. Hey, I hope we do it, but I know that we cannot maintain that for an entire season; it's not possible, unless you think this forward group will produce one of the best offensive seasons in the history of the league.

Then again, after last season, almost anything slightly better will seem like a huge improvement. But I doubt it's enough to get us into the dance.

[kukkudo]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I'm perfectly relaxed, thanks. I just don't understand what you are getting at in your post. What is your point?

My point is with all the changes that have been made coaching change, player change etc. If the Flames fall flat and end up one of the bottom division teams what will be the response from the homers be? Nobody will have an answer to that and I guess its a wait and see approach.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by JetsFlamesFan

So I'm clear, the premises of your argument are that the Flames have upgraded their roster and that they are a dramatically different team from last season, which leads you to conclude that they will have a dramatically different result? I assume you mean an improved result, since you mentioned that they improved their team...

I am ignoring most of this because it is beside the point I am trying to make. My issue is not with the fact that the author has extremely low expectations for the Flames. My issue is with the fact that she is attempting to write a witty season preview of the Flames while clearly not knowing anything beyond the bare basics about the team heading into the new season. It seems intended to be funny, and I think it fails badly. It looks like lazy writing to me.

[nik-]

Why don't these people like my team!

[Cali Panthers Fan]

WTF is this thread for?

I regret ever opening it. Even skimming it was a waste of my time.