[Trade] Stars trade for Bishop and sign him to 6 year deal ($4.916 mil AAV)

[Roof-Daddy]

Hopefully Tre can pull a rabbit out of the hat, but this is a complete disaster as far as I'm concerned.

Flames need a consistent top goalie right now to take the next step, and the only one we presumably could have gotten without giving up assets just got taken off the board, and by a team we could be competing with for a playoff spot next year no less.

Worst part is that it appears Flames very own ownership are the ones that ####ed it up for some reason.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Jacks

With the benefit of hindsight the trade deadline might have been a waste since L.A. didn't make the playoffs but ....

In:
Bishop
Iginla
2017 5th round pick
2017? 4th round pick (for Bishop's rights)

Out:
Peter Budaj
Erik Cernak
2017 7th round pick

LA gets the better players AND the better picks, yet they fired the GM...

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by rhino

Ummm Hiller was never even close to a Bishop 1.0 so I don't believe Bishop would ever be a Hiller 2.0

Believe it or not, there was a time when Hiller was younger that he was an excellent goaltender. Before suffering vertigo in 2011 he boasted a career 0.922 SP in four years in the NHL. He was sensational in the 2010 Olympics, and looked like a legitimate star goalie before his health threw a wrench in his career.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

Elliott and an unproven backup could easily put the Flames in the lottery next year.

This is just utter nonsense.

Elliott has a history of alternating up and down years, with the 2016–17 counting as an "off year." If he returns to the Flames he will not be faced with the same adjustments at the beginning of the season as he was this last year. He may not be the best option in goal, but I cannot imagine that he will be any worse than he was this past season, and the Flames finished in sixth place.

The Flames are a playoff team with merely competent goaltending, and Elliott provides that at a minimum.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

In the 11 seasons (10 as a starter) Fleury has posted a playoff SV% below .900 SIX times.

In his last three seasons as a starter, Fleury has posted a 0.919 SP. Yes, he has had some poor seasons, but more recently he has been very good. I would agree that he is not much of an upgrade over Elliott, but I believe him to be a sight upgrade at minimum.

[burnitdown]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

This is just utter nonsense.

Elliott has a history of alternating up and down years, with the 2016–17 counting as an "off year." If he returns to the Flames he will not be faced with the same adjustments at the beginning of the season as he was this last year. He may not be the best option in goal, but I cannot imagine that he will be any worse than he was this past season, and the Flames finished in sixth place.

The Flames are a playoff team with merely competent goaltending, and Elliott provides that at a minimum.

Calling that utter nonsense is a bit dramatic. All teams that don't make the playoffs are lottery teams. We finished tied for the last playoff spot in the West despite a historic winning streak and no significant injuries. With Dallas potentially adding Bishop to shore up their pathetic goaltending and Winnipeg's young guns getting a year older, we're far from guaranteed lock to make the playoffs...especially if we have Elliott and an unproven goalie leading the charge.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

And 6 under .900. But you also have to account for the difference in playoff appearances. Fleury has been in the playoffs nearly twice as much and (unsurprisingly) his number of good seasons and number of bad seasons are nearly double Elliott in both categories. They are similar.

Cherry pick it however makes you comfortable with Fleury. The biggest single improvement he'll give you over Elliott is name recognition...

I pretty much agree with everything in your post except for this. The biggest single benefit that Fleury provides over Elliott is a tested ability to provide better-than-average goaltending over the course of +60 games.

[Roof-Daddy]

Flames have to get top 3 in division.

Anaheim has to be the favorite continue winning division titles IMO.

Hopefully San Jose continues to show their age.
Hopefully LA can't successfully retool their roster, and fail to get good bounce back from core players
Hopefully Talbot has an off year, and the coilers fall back to earth a bit. A 30+ point gain in one season is ridiculous. Gimme a damn break.

Van, Arizona and Vegas shouldn't be threats.

Have to finish ahead of two of San Jose, LA and Edmonton.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by burnitdown

Calling that utter nonsense is a bit dramatic. All teams that don't make the playoffs are lottery teams. We finished tied for the last playoff spot in the West despite a historic winning streak and no significant injuries. With Dallas potentially adding Bishop to shore up their pathetic goaltending and Winnipeg's young guns getting a year older, we're far from guaranteed lock to make the playoffs...especially if we have Elliott and an unproven goalie leading the charge.

Conventionally speaking "lottery teams" are those which boast better than extremely slim odds of winning the draft lottery, and the term is most commonly used to describe the four or five worst teams in the NHL, as distinct from the more general "non-playoff teams."

It frankly surprises me that you are so much more bullish on the perennial lottery-ranked Jets than you are on the Flames who have made the playoffs two of the last three years. As for your appraisal of the season, the Flames also managed to finish with one fewer wins in the season than the division winner, despite one of their worst starts to the season. This also came in a year in which both of the team's top forwards fell back a little from their average production, and in which sophomore high-end draft pick Sam Bennett struggled offensively.

The point is that there are a lot of ways to construct a narrative for the Flames' 2016–17 season, but I don't believe it is possible to write that story leading to a conclusion that they are destined to be among the five worst teams in the League next year, regardless of who is playing goal.

[dammage79]

Didn't want Bishop in the first place so this is good news. II don't know what Reliving is going to do about goal tending but I have faith in him to do his best to solve it.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

This is just utter nonsense.

Elliott has a history of alternating up and down years, with the 2016–17 counting as an "off year." If he returns to the Flames he will not be faced with the same adjustments at the beginning of the season as he was this last year. He may not be the best option in goal, but I cannot imagine that he will be any worse than he was this past season, and the Flames finished in sixth place.

The Flames are a playoff team with merely competent goaltending, and Elliott provides that at a minimum.

I don't see it as utter nonsense. Without Johnson's hot play in middle of season, this team is in the lottery.

Guaranteeing playoffs for the Flames with a year of comparable play from Elliott feels like homerism. This team needs to get better in net and other places too.

[Alberta_Beef]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

Thanks. Using that site showed me Elliott has had a sub .900 save % in 3 of the 6 seasons he played in the playoffs and only 1 with a .920. Fleury has 3 over a .920

If you actually looked at Elliott's playoff numbers you would see that outside of this year and his first as a starter in Ottawa his playoff numbers are actually really good.

09/10, first year starter, 2nd in the NHL and he struggled
11/12, he only had a .904 save percentage, but had a 2.37 GAA and his best quality start numbers of any playoff year for him.
12/13, he didn't make that .920 bar, but I'll take .919 with a sub-2 GAA anyday
14/15, he played a whole 26 minutes but you felt it was necessary to count it
15/16, he had a great playoff
16/17, we all know what happened.

Another thing to point out, that 09/10 Ottawa team had a defense group featured a rookie Erik Karlsson, Chris Phillips, a 34 year old Andy Sutton, Anton Volchenkov, Chris Campoli and Matt Carkner. That is not a defensive group that should have been playing in the playoffs, it was on par with our 2015 playoff team, if not worse.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

I don't see it as utter nonsense. Without Johnson's hot play in middle of season, this team is in the lottery.

Guaranteeing playoffs for the Flames with a year of comparable play from Elliott feels like homerism. This team needs to get better in net and other places too.

Of course they need to get better, but I cannot fathom why anyone is expecting the Flames to be significantly worse.

Why should I be persuaded to ignore Johnson's string of strong games? Virtually every team in the NHL every year has a goalie or two who will experience similar streaks. The best goalies can maintain the same level of play consistently, which is what separates them from the pack of merely competent NHL goalies who will vacillate between periods of excellent and average play, which is what the Flames got from their goalies last season. The Flames will get the same level of goaltending next year from almost any combination of NHL goalies.

It will be great if the goaltending is better; I see no good reason to expect that it will be any worse.

[Backlunds_socks]

I guess we get left over again boys

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

Hopefully Tre can pull a rabbit out of the hat, but this is a complete disaster as far as I'm concerned.

Flames need a consistent top goalie right now to take the next step, and the only one we presumably could have gotten without giving up assets just got taken off the board, and by a team we could be competing with for a playoff spot next year no less.

Worst part is that it appears Flames very own ownership are the ones that ####ed it up for some reason.

Disaster?

The disaster would have been signing up for 6 or 7 years of Ben Bishop at 6 or 7 M per.

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Disaster?

The disaster would have been signing up for 6 or 7 years of Ben Bishop at 6 or 7 M per.

That's a matter of opinion and only time will tell.

What we just witnessed in our playoff "run" was a disaster though, and get ready for more of it unless Tre can do like I said and work a miracle.

[mrdonkey]

"Disaster" is too strong a word, but I do think that bringing back Elliott would be very tough for most fans to accept. I'd be pissed if that's the best Tre can muster given the circumstances.

[1qqaaz]

At this point, I'd say MAF is the most likely candidate for the Flames starting goalie

But Grubauer and Raanta seem like reasonable gambles with upside.

Darkhorse options could be Schneider (Devils need to rebuild) or Murray (depending on the Penguin's playoff run).
I could also see Varlamov being on the block.

[Roof-Daddy]

Some of you are so frustrating. So godamned afraid to have a bad contract that you're just happy as can be to let an elite franchise altering player float right on by and say "phew, dodged a bullet"

And all this after just watching our young team turn a corner and finally look elite for a good stretch of the season, only to have the playoffs be an embarrassment mainly due to terrible goaltending.

Pekka Rinne broke into the league in his late 20s, had a few elite seasons and at 30 signed a 7 year $7 million per year contract. He's in year 5 of that contract right now and has even had a few down years in that span, do you think the Preds regret signing that deal?

Whatever. Is what it is. If Dallas signs him I hope I'm dead wrong and he stinks up the joint and makes me look like an idiot for the next 6 years. I seriously doubt it though. He'll probably have a down year or two in there, but when he's on he will carry that team to strong regular season finishes and deep playoff runs.

[Calgary4LIfe]

I am surprised nobody has yet put up a fancy stats graph comparing a bunch of available goalies (or have I missed it?). I find those quite interesting (though incomplete).

I would think Fleury would be the most stable experienced goalie rumored to be available now. I also do think that Fleury would benefit from having an arguably better defensive core on the Flames than he has had in Pittsburgh.

I am not sure who my favorite is now. There is a mixed bag of great young potential waiting for a shot, and Fleury. Can't think of too many other vets (ignoring Miller - he was great in Van, but his age would worry me at this point) that are available.

If it is Elliott again, I would want the Flames to also pull the trigger on a young goalie with a tonne of promise as well then - like Grubaure, Korpisalo, etc. Someone that could potentially take over.