2013-2014 Flames are they that good?

[Cheese]

Catching teams by surprise this year...next year teams will plan better for us. Assume growing pains next year that will hurt worse than this year.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

It's been very encouraging but lets not get ahead of ourselves as the Flames are what the standings say they are and it's not very good. Warrener was saying while their play has been great as of late that it wont translate into next season because players are playing with no pressure and nothing to lose. Come game one of the 2013/14 regular season the points matter again and players grip the stick more and overthink things. I believe this is true because we have seen a lot of teams win in garbage time that haven't translated into the next season.

All of that said as long as they keep up the work ethic and gradually infuse talent there's no reason to think that the team can't gradually improve season over season. The team is still 2-3 years away from playing meaningful hockey in March/April.

That's all true, but the Flames have been reasonable for most of the year except for the time where Gio was hurt.

Without Gio 5-11-2
With Gio 25-24-5.

If he can keep up his play... I don't see a giant step-back next year, especially since I'd expect better goaltending (less Berra). Its not like they tanked all year and just started winning games now.

[Wolfman]

Originally Posted by Realtor 1

We are 2 stars away from being "that good"
The bright side is that we have players in the system that could be one of these stars in a short period of time!

Poirier in my eyes

[Huntingwhale]

I expect the Flames to put forth the same solid effort next year. But sophomore slumps are very real things. At one point we had 8 rookies in our lineup this season. None looked out of place. But I fully expect at least half of them to have some soft of exteded slump...including our very own franchise player in Monahan. Next year will be the true test, as some of our UFA vets will leave and some of the sophomores are no longer playing for a job and have solidified a spot in the lineup. I'd like nothing more then to be wrong and continue this strong crescendo upwards. But fans and media will need to temper their expectations.

The fact is, the team lacks skilled finishers and had a very porous defence to start the year. Changes are going to be made, and some fan favorites are going to be shipped out. That's going to sting, but the fact is Burke very plainly said that changes need to be made in order to have a parade one day.

[tvp2003]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

I posted something similar in a Sven thread, but last year at this time:

• Monahan, Colborne, Knight, Poirier and Klimchuk weren't in the organization
• Granlund was a giant question mark playing in Finland
• Reinhart was having a terrible year with the Heat (may have been up with the Flames on this exact date, but the point stands)
• Agostino & Hanowski were in college, Wotherspoon was in the WHL

Add in another good college season from Gaudreau, Arnold and Gillies and Jankowski moving to centre (and taking a step forward) and a lot of good things have happened in this organization for the future (to offset Sven's downturn)

I'll add -- Ramo was playing in Russia and Ortio in Finland; both were considered unproven (at best) at the NHL level.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

I wonder if those numbers have improved in the 2nd half? The shots against have definitely decreased as the season has progressed.

No offence intended to GGG, but I do love how counting shots is considered advanced stats in hockey. We've got a loooooooooong way to go in hockey stats to get to really meaningful (I.e. Not common sense) numbers.

It isn't counting shots, its finding what corelates to winning and increasing the sample size. What measures winning well with luck removed is posession of the puck. Currently that is not tracked. But surprisingly or not shots for vs against corelates well to puck posesssion. And shots for vs against corelates well vs scoring chances. I think people look at these stats wrong when they think all it shows is that a team should shoot more if they want to win. That isn't the way to fix your team. The causality goes the other way. A winning team due to having more posession of the puck ends up having more shots.

Its about posession of the puck, not shots. Unfortunately the NHL no longer keeps puck posession stats.

As for the team I believe that shots allowed has consistantly gone down over the course of the season however shots our shots for has been stagnent. To be this suggests a lot of hard work and lack of skill. This is where I see our current team as peaking. Without more skill our offensive numbers aren't improving and being 12th in defense doesn't leave that much more room for improvement.

The other reason to expect a set back is our record in one goal games as usually they are pretty random from year to year.

[calgarygeologist]

The Flames are not terrible. There are some very promising aspects that have been revealed during this season and it looks like the future might be very exciting.

The Flames might have goaltending figured out with Ramo showing signs that he could be a viable #1. Giordana, Cammalleri, Glencross and Hudler are proving to be solid foundation players. Smid was a valuable acquisition on defense and should help build the defensive core. Monahan looks like he is ready for a breakout year.

If I'm not mistaken the Flames have some serious salary cap space for next season even after potentially re-signing Cammalleri in the off-season. I really hope the Flames can make a big signing in the off-season for a player that will help carry the team next year and beyond. Maybe they can go after a guy like Stastny, Michalek, Samuelsson or Vrbata.

The one area I have concerns with in the organization is at the top. I just don't like Burke and I don't think it was a good move to bring him into the organization.

[Resolute 14]

Yes, we are as good as our record indicates. And modest though that may be, it still exceeds the expectations of everyone but themselves.

Biggest things we need for next year is a step forward defensively from at least one defenceman, and to either re-sign Cammalleri or find a way to replace his offence. A healthy Wideman would help alleviate pressure on offence from the blueline since one can't simply assume Gio will repeat this season. It's a matter of progression now. The games will get harder next year. Need players to keep getting better, need prospects to continue stepping up, and need this year's draft picks to enter the system with promise. Most importantly, need to keep everyone moving the same direction like they are this season.

[Imported_Aussie]

I think a big reason the Flames have been competitive is that they have good depth. What they lack is a couple of true star players. Instead they have half of a top pairing on D, a mix of forwards with potential and complimentary top 6/9 pieces, and a lot of 3/4 line forwards, 4-6 defencemen.

Long term, this team needs a bona fide top pairing defenceman to play with Giordano, as I see Brodie as second pairing on a good team. If the 3-7 on the defensive depth chart is made up of guys likes Brodie, Russell, Smid, Wotherspoon, Butler, Seiloff (assuming he recovers) + any other fringe guys they pick up, things look good.
The top 6 forwards have a ton of question marks. IMO, Glencross is a 3rd liner with ability to move up when hot, and Cammalleri & Hudler are good complimentary guys (and one of them should move on in the next 12 months). Backlund could be a top 6 centre, or be a very good 3rd line centre. Stajan is a guy who can play a role on any line, a good guy to have in the rebuild, who can move down as young guys pass him on the depth chart. Jones is a plug for now, and as he has size, fills a need in the forward unit
In net, Ramo is playing well, but tops out as a 1B IMO. Ortio is a question mark, as is Gillies, but both have given reasons for optimism.

Long term needs:

#1/2/3 centre (assuming Monahan and Backlund are the guys going forward, go for depth of quality guys ala Boston)

#1/2 defenceman, right side

#1 RW

#1 LW (could be Gaudreau)

This is assuming that out present prospects move into depth roles. Poirier looks to me to be a good 2/3 line RW, upgrading over Jones, Kilmchuk will be a complimentary guy replacing Hudler/Cammalleri over time. Jankowski might make it into a trio of centres with Monahan and Backlund, but he is still a big question mark.

The draft will be big this year, as Ekblad would round out the D corps, Reinhart or Bennet could round out the centre trio, and if needed, play on the right.

This is what makes the place the flames will be picking tough, as organizational needs would suggest once the big 3 are gone, that Virtanen or Fleury would be the best to get, but Dal Colle, Draisatl, maybe even Perlini and Ritchie may be considered BPA over those guys.

[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Yes, we are as good as our record indicates. And modest though that may be, it still exceeds the expectations of everyone but themselves.

Biggest things we need for next year is a step forward defensively from at least one defenceman, and to either re-sign Cammalleri or find a way to replace his offence. A healthy Wideman would help alleviate pressure on offence from the blueline since one can't simply assume Gio will repeat this season. It's a matter of progression now. The games will get harder next year. Need players to keep getting better, need prospects to continue stepping up, and need this year's draft picks to enter the system with promise. Most importantly, need to keep everyone moving the same direction like they are this season.

There are a lot of top defensemen on the UFA list for this off-season. I'm sure many will re-sign with their current clubs but it could be a good opportunity for the Flames to strike.

[Madrox]

Since the all-star break, the only two teams in the NHL who have scored more goals than Calgary are Boston and San Jose. The rebuild's hardly over, but damn I love watching this team.

[Enoch Root]

Are the Flames good? No. As many posters have mentioned, they need to continue to add talent.

However, they are no where near as bad as the league thinks/expected.

Not just the general view, but an almost unanimous view was that the Flames sorely lacked talent and also lacked high-end prospects.

Well, they definitely still need more high-end prospects (obviously), but the progression of several of the young guys has been pretty incredible in the last year.

Under 25-ers on the team (I am including Backlund because he was 24 until about a week or two ago):

Backlund and Brodie both took their games not only to new levels, but to levels that few even dared to hope for. Both are now solid NHLers.

Bouma missed ALL of last year. Honestly, I expected him to play this season in Abby to get his game back. Instead, he has turned into a modern day Bobby Nystrom. You win with guys like that.

Byron has basically come out of nowhere and been a solid contributor with tons of heart.

Colborne is simply not the same player that came over from Toronto in October. He is now a legitimate young player and I can't wait to see how far he can take his game with more strength and confidence

Monahan has progressed nicely all season

Then you have the group of prospects that are close:

Granlund - simply put, he has progressed further this year than anyone could have hoped

Ortio - see Granlund

Knight was a nice addition to our prospect depth and has progressed nicely. Ferland was growing by leaps and bounds before his injury. Arnold had a break-out year. Wotherspoon quietly, steadily improves and impresses.

And then there is Gaudreau. Yes he is small and has a big hill to climb, but his NHLE says it all - the highest we have seen since Malkin and Kane.

Baertschi has had an off year, but he remains a blue-chip prospect.

And there is reason to be optimistic about Poirier and Klimchuk. Agostino has looked like a legitimate prospect in his short time here.

Goaltending:

Ramo has progressed all season long and now looks like a bonafide NHLer. Ortio has progressed so far that the Flames traded Brossoit and Berra within a couple months.

Leadership:

Giordano. Enough said.


To summarize: the Flames organization has progressed a tremendous amount in the last 12 months. With a couple more really solid drafts and a couple high-end prospects to add to the mix, they will be well on their way to bringing the Flames back to respectability and then contention.

Not all of the players mentioned will turn out or remain with the Flames long-term. But regardless, they have all increased their value as assets if nothing else. The Flames have pretty decent depth now with respect to players under 25 - a pretty remarkable turnaround in the last 24 months.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Madrox

Since the all-star break, the only two teams in the NHL who have scored more goals than Calgary are Boston and San Jose. The rebuild's hardly over, but damn I love watching this team.

and as someone else posted in another thread, since Jan 18th, the Flames are 6th in the league with 29 pts in 24 games.

[Calgary4LIfe]

I think it all comes down to expectations.

Flames are probably just slightly better than analysts assumed they would be.

They are much higher in their prospect pool than what analysts said they were, however, and it is showing with so much young blood stepping in and doing well.

However, they are way above expectations in being competitive. Without looking, they probably blew out more teams than they have been blown out this season. They are involved in a league-leading number of 1-goal games. They play (for the most part) a full 60 minute game night in and night out.

In my opinion, they are much further ahead than what most on here except the most optimistic of posters hoped for. They are still not 'good', but they are not "Edmonton not good" levels for sure.

[ForeverFlameFan]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

It's been very encouraging but lets not get ahead of ourselves as the Flames are what the standings say they are and it's not very good. Warrener was saying while their play has been great as of late that it wont translate into next season because players are playing with no pressure and nothing to lose. Come game one of the 2013/14 regular season the points matter again and players grip the stick more and overthink things. I believe this is true because we have seen a lot of teams win in garbage time that haven't translated into the next season.

All of that said as long as they keep up the work ethic and gradually infuse talent there's no reason to think that the team can't gradually improve season over season. The team is still 2-3 years away from playing meaningful hockey in March/April.

The Flames are playing against teams that want to get more points to end their season. Let's take last night for example, we're playing spoiler, it's not like San Jose wasn't trying last night. San Jose is trying to stay ahead of Anaheim, they wanted these points. I think the Flames are playing with pressure. I think they are already playing playoff-type hockey, Hartley said it himself.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by GGG

It isn't counting shots, its finding what corelates to winning and increasing the sample size. What measures winning well with luck removed is posession of the puck. Currently that is not tracked. But surprisingly or not shots for vs against corelates well to puck posesssion. And shots for vs against corelates well vs scoring chances. I think people look at these stats wrong when they think all it shows is that a team should shoot more if they want to win. That isn't the way to fix your team. The causality goes the other way. A winning team due to having more posession of the puck ends up having more shots.

Its about posession of the puck, not shots. Unfortunately the NHL no longer keeps puck posession stats.

As for the team I believe that shots allowed has consistantly gone down over the course of the season however shots our shots for has been stagnent. To be this suggests a lot of hard work and lack of skill. This is where I see our current team as peaking. Without more skill our offensive numbers aren't improving and being 12th in defense doesn't leave that much more room for improvement.

The other reason to expect a set back is our record in one goal games as usually they are pretty random from year to year.

You can explain it however you want... it is still counting shots.

[nik-]

I think we need to add two elite players to really be a legit contender. Which is a little scary, because this team works too hard to get into McDavid/Eichel territory. We're going to have to have some pretty significant drafting luck go our way in the form of some home runs in the 5-10 range which is where we're likely going to be the next few years.

[Robbob]

Originally Posted by Cheese

Catching teams by surprise this year...next year teams will plan better for us. Assume growing pains next year that will hurt worse than this year.

I think that was the case early on in the season, but it is no secret right now of what the Flames are. Every team has played the Flames at least once and they know they have to earn their points. I think the coming to Calgary with the expectation that you are just going to get two points is no longer there.

[PeteMoss]

For the record:
Since Olympics: 26.93 Shots Taken, 23.93 Shots Allowed

Pre Olympics: 26.79 Shots Taken, 29.03 Shots Allowed


Obviously you run into sample size issues with the post Olympics. But they shots taken hasn't decreased, while the shots allowed is way down.

[Five-hole]

The biggest difference between the play you're seeing now and the play that sunk us to the bottom of the league is the goaltending. Our goaltending was atrocious in the first half of the season. That may somewhat be a product of an increased commitment to team defence, but no one can deny the number of bad goals that cost us at the worst times in the first 40 games.

Now that we're getting consistent, generally good goaltending, we're a .500 team or better.

As someone else mentioned, though, it's not going to get much better than we're seeing right now without a serious talent injection. Is Poirier/Klimchuk/Baertschi/Gaudreau enough? Considering probably at least 2 of those 4 won't amount to much (just on odds), I don't think so. Is the guy we draft in the top 6 this season enough on top of that? Maybe. But probably not.

For this group to become an actual contender, all four of the guys mentioned would have to turn into top 6 players and our first rounder this year needs to turn into a star. That's pretty unlikely.

So we're still a few pieces and a few development years away.