Treliving needs to start feeling the heat

[Tiger]

Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper

I find it laughable that so many people in this fanbase believes that every player will just automatically pick up their game once the Flames fire GG; as if his coaching has stunted all of their play or something. I don't know if it's because so many people here fall in love with a player and can't fathom the thought that they're really just not that good, i'm really not sure.

But what I do know is that we've seen 14 coaches in the last 29 years and we've seen basically the same results every year. Only 2 times has this franchise been out of round 1. So, if anyone actually thinks that firing another coach is going to be the answer, then they may truly be insane as we can continue doing the same thing over and over and over again, but until this organization and fanbase fixes the way we think, we're probably going to have another 30 year run of mediocrity.

so you're saying it is the arena?

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper

I find it laughable that so many people in this fanbase believes that every player will just automatically pick up their game once the Flames fire GG; as if his coaching has stunted all of their play or something. I don't know if it's because so many people here fall in love with a player and can't fathom the thought that they're really just not that good, i'm really not sure.

But what I do know is that we've seen 14 coaches in the last 29 years and we've seen basically the same results every year. Only 2 times has this franchise been out of round 1. So, if anyone actually thinks that firing another coach is going to be the answer, then they may truly be insane as we can continue doing the same thing over and over and over again, but until this organization and fanbase fixes the way we think, we're probably going to have another 30 year run of mediocrity.

Such a hollow statement as there's not a lot of quality in that quantity of coaches. You only have to list the names of those coaches to know why the results have been the same. This organization has done a terrible job of employing good coaches. You notice the list of winning head coaches show coaches that have coached many teams but never the Flames outside of Darryl & Keenan (who was brought in way past his prime)? One good coach since the 80's and no coincidence the only success this organization has had since then was under that one coach. I've repeated it over and over but the guys this organization hires to coach it's teams rarely if ever coach again in the NHL as a head coach. That's a massive problem.

Say what you want about the Leafs paying Babcock $50 million but for them being a winning organization again is worth it. With the wrong coach that organization would be the same mess the Flames are today. This organization really needs to hire a good coach. He doesn't even have to be Babcock or Quenneville great but he needs to be a guy that other teams would consider hiring because of his merits as a head coach. If you don't have a good coach your team has lost the race out of the gates regardless of what you have on the roster. The 2017/18 Flames never really had a chance with this coaching staff.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

You have to address the right wing position. I think they need to add two offensive minded forwards. One really good one and one good one. But at minimum you need to bring in a top 6 RW so that everyone else can slot more appropriately.
So it is a question of if you can do that with minor tinkering or not.
But it isn't like the right side under achieved. It just sucks. So entering the season next year without that being addressed would be foolish in my mind.

I think the need for a top line RW is overblown. Sure, it would be nice, but as long as the Flames get more goals overall, it doesn't matter where they come from.

To be a top 10 scoring team, which is a good mark to aim for if they want to be actual contenders, then they need more goals from some where. To be top 10 they need about 250 goals total. If the breakdown is something like:

30-25-20
25-20-15
25-15-10
6-6-3

12-18
10-5
3-2

then they'll get to 250 goals without needing a huge RW acquisition. Ferland has put up more than 20 on the RW, Frolik is typically good for 15, and only under GG has Brouwer put up less than 18 in the last decade. Asking him to bounce back to 10 shouldn't be too much to ask. Getting 30 out of Gio and Hamilton shouldn't be hard, and if Brodie can bounce back to 10, then the Dmen should be able to account for 50 total.

As long as the Center plus the LW are putting up a lot of goals, the RW can be more of a support player. Very few lines in the entire league have 3 players on them that all score goals.

There are other internal options to improve the right wing as well. Maybe a new coach will notice that Johnny has dominated in international play as a RW for Team USA and try him out there. Switch Johnny to RW, move Bennett up to top line LW and move Ferland down to the 3rd and the lineup is already more balanced. Sure you might need to sign or trade for LW for the 3rd line, but LWs are the easiest position to acquire, so that should be doable.

I'm all for picking up a top RW if it's possible, but I don't think it's nearly as important as getting the coaching staff right this time.

[Erick Estrada]

Ferland has scored 20 goals once and was mostly during a stretch of hot play this season. You can't count on him to be a perennial 20 goal scorer because he's only done it once and may never again. The fact he's been MIA for the last 1/3 of the season has hurt the team so badly just goes to show how dire things are on RW. Frolik is a 3rd line checking forward that has been terrible this season and to me looks like a 30 year old player going on 40 declining fast. The need for a top line is absolutely not overblown.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Ferland has scored 20 goals once and was mostly during a stretch of hot play this season. You can't count on him to be a perennial 20 goal scorer because he's only done it once and may never again. The fact he's been MIA for the last 1/3 of the season has hurt the team so badly just goes to show how dire things are on RW. Frolik is a 3rd line checking forward that has been terrible this season and to me looks like a 30 year old player going on 40 declining fast. The need for a top line is absolutely not overblown.

He had 15 the year before, it's not a stretch to think he can get 20 again next year. And Frolik didn't look good, but then again, the entire team didn't look good for most of the year. Players can and do bounce back. Especially under a new coach.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

Need to take into consideration the contracts. Hamilton has 3 more years at under $6M. Seguin has 1 then will require at least $10M to keep.

Dougie is 24 and has 4 straight seasons of more than 40pts while providing incredible advanced stats playing against top opposition.

Considering his age, size, skating, scoring, contract he carries an incredible amount of value. Flames should be able to get a top winger and a pick for him or a comparable centre

yeah but the poster said with no qualifications Hamilton is one of the 10 best in the league. period.
not taking salary into account, not under the age of 25. but top 10.

as good as he is, that just isn't true. he's not even the best defenseman on his own team.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Ferland has scored 20 goals once and was mostly during a stretch of hot play this season. You can't count on him to be a perennial 20 goal scorer because he's only done it once and may never again.

Ferland was producing at a 35 goal pace before the whole team fell off the map. You wanna value Ferland as a guy who may never score 20 again but it's possible he scores 30+ next year. Trading him would be riskier than a wait and see approach.

[Calgary4LIfe]

I've posted about this before. I think the defence on the team are incredibly misused - they should be in the top 5 or so teams in the NHL for points from the backend. They currently sit in the 2nd half of the league.

The existing system is flawed - it doesn't create enough quality chances, and it is giving up too many chances the other way. If the Flames just find a way to squeeze out some more offence from this same existing group and tighten-up a bit defensively - something that a good coach with a solid system catered to the personnel on the roster should be able to implement - then this team suddenly doesn't look so bad.

Right now they are awful offensively and awful defensively. Taking a look at what Hartley managed to get offensively from his rosters, I would bet that another decent coach can get a whole lot more offence from this group.

Colborne, Bouma, Jones, Glencross (right before his career ended), Jooris, Granlund, Raymond..

Seriously, take a look at this roster:
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/l...000432015.html

Not a great roster. Yet that roster finished 6th overall for goals scored, and 16th overall for goals against.

Calgary - with an improved roster - sits at 27th for Goals For, and 19th for goals against.

Heck, Calgary's first year of their rebuild - 2013-14 - were 23rd in GF and 24th in GA.

Hartley's last year - the year in which Treliving decided to fire him - the Flames were: 10th in the league in Goals For, and last in the league in goals against. Being last in the league in goals against is 100% a fire-able offence, even with the goaltending excuse (which was putrid). This team still managed to score goals with a much less skilled roster.

I also argue that the Pacific is a weaker division this year as well. It used to be the toughest division in the NHL, and now it is fairly weak.

This team doesn't NEED some huge trades and major moves or a major shakeup. They need a quality coach. Someone BETTER (as promised) than Bob Hartley. There is no way that Gulutzan has shown himself to be a better coach than Hartley, as he has had significantly better teams and hasn't really improved their position in a weaker division.

Find a damn good coach, and this team will improve significantly. Get Giordano, Brodie, Hamonic and Stone back to even close to their career averages. Get the depth back to producing - make a system that is actually conducive to scoring like more cross-crease passes and crashing the net, rather than having low-skilled guys trying to beat goalies in position.

I don't think they are cup contenders right now as this team stands, but I would say they are much closer to being cup contenders than they are to the rebuilding teams, and under Gulutzan this team seems a heck of a lot closer to a rebuilding team. I am all for making a (good) move in picking up a RW scorer (or two!), but as it stands now, this team should have enough scoring on the roster. It is just massively underutilized (defencemen) and/or has an inappropriate system in place that makes it more difficult for forwards to actually score.

It isn't just 'bad luck'. It isn't just 'that goalie stole the game'. This is more than a season-long run of out-shooting and out-chancing opponents - even weaker teams - and losing. CORSI isn't measuring quality, only quantity, so at best some people are basing their opinions with only half the information.

I can't wait until a new coach comes in and changes how this team plays. Any personnel moves on the roster are just (hopefully) gravy to me.

[Classic_Sniper]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Such a hollow statement as there's not a lot of quality in that quantity of coaches. You only have to list the names of those coaches to know why the results have been the same. This organization has done a terrible job of employing good coaches. You notice the list of winning head coaches show coaches that have coached many teams but never the Flames outside of Darryl & Keenan (who was brought in way past his prime)? One good coach since the 80's and no coincidence the only success this organization has had since then was under that one coach. I've repeated it over and over but the guys this organization hires to coach it's teams rarely if ever coach again in the NHL as a head coach. That's a massive problem.

Say what you want about the Leafs paying Babcock $50 million but for them being a winning organization again is worth it. With the wrong coach that organization would be the same mess the Flames are today. This organization really needs to hire a good coach. He doesn't even have to be Babcock or Quenneville great but he needs to be a guy that other teams would consider hiring because of his merits as a head coach. If you don't have a good coach your team has lost the race out of the gates regardless of what you have on the roster. The 2017/18 Flames never really had a chance with this coaching staff.

We had multiple Stanley Cup winning coaches in that 30 year time frame and they all flamed out just like the others did. "Good," expensive coaches don't guarantee you squat. Hitchcock, Julien and Bylsma were all Stanley cup winning coaches and had great track records and look at their current teams right now. All failures.

This isn't even exclusively a Calgary Flames problem. Look at any other franchise in this league that has had a difficult time winning in the same time frame. You don't think they've hired some good coaches? Coaching is not and has not been the problem for this franchise. We've hired some good coaches with winning pedigrees.

But the real problem has been roster construction. This organization for as long as I've been a fan back in the dead puck era has always put too much emphasis on things like character and toughness and grit and it's given us the same results for 20+ years. You get what you put in, you want to consistently build teams that are top heavy with mediocre depth and mediocre skill, then the results are going to mediocre.

The best teams in this league are fast, highly skilled and can score their way out of trouble. But until we start building our teams like the top teams do, we'll always be good, but not good enough to contend.

[Toonage]

Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper

We had multiple Stanley Cup winning coaches in that 30 year time frame and they all flamed out just like the others did.

What can't be ignored is the time period from which that coach won the cup to the period they coached the Flames.

Keenan? 14 years
Hartley? 12 years

Thats a lifetime in the NHL. So much had changed.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by Toonage

What can't be ignored is the time period from which that coach won the cup to the period they coached the Flames.

Keenan? 14 years
Hartley? 12 years

Thats a lifetime in the NHL. So much had changed.

Yet both of those coaches had 5 playoff wins apiece to Gulutzan/Brent Sutter's 0.

[Toonage]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

Yet both of those coaches had 5 playoff wins apiece to Gulutzan/Brent Sutter's 0.

I'm in no way defending Gulutzan or Brent Sutter.

Just pointing out that the multiple cup winning coaches that fell flat on their faces were not just coming off their cup winning seasons.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper

Only 2 times has this franchise been out of round 1. So, if anyone actually thinks that firing another coach is going to be the answer, then they may truly be insane as we can continue doing the same thing over and over and over again, but until this organization and fanbase fixes the way we think, we're probably going to have another 30 year run of mediocrity.

Let me get this straight. The fans have to think differently and if they do the team will play better.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by zamler

Let me get this straight. The fans have to think differently and if they do the team will play better.

As a fanbase we do need to evolve past the fixation on theatrics and physicality and not being tankers. The most successful teams are what Canadian fanbases would consider "soft" and most of those teams tanked for high picks like Stamkos, Hedman, Malkin, Crosby, Toews, Kane - all picks higher than anything we have had.

Even the Big Bad Bruins and the Kings moved away from the model our fanbase chased... the fanbase was so desperate for a Milan Lucic type they applauded Lucic Lite in Brouwer. Yet the teams that let the actual Lucic go have evolved while the team that signed the actual Lucic has done a 180.

Yet this fanbase is still calling for more toughness. Despite us being 2nd in the league in fights.

[Classic_Sniper]

Originally Posted by Toonage

What can't be ignored is the time period from which that coach won the cup to the period they coached the Flames.

Keenan? 14 years
Hartley? 12 years

Thats a lifetime in the NHL. So much had changed.

And they just forgot how to coach or something? Hartley won the Jack Adams in 2015 for crying out loud. Too many people here are focused on coaching when these guys aren't even on the ice. 14 coaches we've had and virtually no difference in results. The same 1st round exits and middling finishes.

Like I said, this isn't even a problem that's exclusive to this team. Look up north, they've gone through the same coaching carousel that we've gone through. I'm convinced that fans in general are just irrational when it comes to coaching. You watch your team in a bubble and pick apart every mistake when every other coach in the league makes the same mistakes. You'd think that Chicago and New York fans would be singing the praises of historically good coaches like Quenneville and Vignault, yet they can't wait to fire these guys.

These guys aren't even on the ice, it's nuts. People really need to stop dwelling on the coaches so much and put more onus on the players who actually play the game. 5000+ replies and nearly 300,000 views on the main page just talking about firing the coach? That's just embarrassing and ridiculous to me.

[Classic_Sniper]

Originally Posted by zamler

Let me get this straight. The fans have to think differently and if they do the team will play better.

No, what I'm saying is that both the organization and fanbase collectively need to start thinking differently. It's been 20+ years of "we need more toughness and grit," "we need guys with more character," "we need guys who stand up to goons." It's all I ever hear in this place and overtime.

Too many times I've read posts here saying that we're fast enough and skilled enough. If this team is considered skilled enough and fast enough here, than the standards are way too low.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper

But the real problem has been roster construction. This organization for as long as I've been a fan back in the dead puck era has always put too much emphasis on things like character and toughness and grit and it's given us the same results for 20+ years. You get what you put in, you want to consistently build teams that are top heavy with mediocre depth and mediocre skill, then the results are going to mediocre.

This has been the worst trait of the franchise, alongside impatience. Combine the two and you get the archetypal Flames deal: Trading a 2nd round pick for a character 3rd line winger.

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

What? The way we think? So what do you think the problem is? Flames jerseys are cursed?

Problem: There was too much early success in the 5 year re-build... This fooled management to thinking they had core players of a SC contender and they paid them as such and went after UFAs to get there quicker. This is year 5 since Iginla and Bouwmeester were traded and according to a 5 year plan all the home grown talent is just about ready to be contenders.

Home Grown talent since the rebuild: Monahan, Gaudreau, Bennett, Tkachuk, Kulak, Jankowski

The Flames were short of talent and went for the most talented players and did not give a high priority to smarts and character.

The difference between what the Flames did is what the Jets did.

The Flames are close to starting another 5 year re-build.

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper

No, what I'm saying is that both the organization and fanbase collectively need to start thinking differently. It's been 20+ years of "we need more toughness and grit," "we need guys with more character," "we need guys who stand up to goons." It's all I ever hear in this place and overtime.

Too many times I've read posts here saying that we're fast enough and skilled enough. If this team is considered skilled enough and fast enough here, than the standards are way too low.

We also need to trust our youth more. The Flames are bad at letting young guys good enough to play start the year in the AHL

If Treliving wants to turn this team around he needs to get off his wallet and sign 1 or 2 UFA's and if it puts in a cap crunch I guess we solve that issue by playing Andersson, Wotherspoon, Kylington, Rittich, Klimchuk, Foo type players. Not all have to be on the team but we better see 3-4 of them.

IMO 2 of Stone, Brodie, Brouwer or Frolik need to move out so we can get the guys we need. Other than Brouwer the rest are good players but in some cases are they really that much better than the AHL players? Also could fix the draft situation by trading 2. Even if we end up with a 2nd and a 3rd back it will allow us to add some ok prospects to the prospect pool

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by Macho0978

IMO 2 of Stone, Brodie, Brouwer or Frolik need to move out so we can get the guys we need. Other than Brouwer the rest are good players but in some cases are they really that much better than the AHL players? Also could fix the draft situation by trading 2. Even if we end up with a 2nd and a 3rd back it will allow us to add some ok prospects to the prospect pool

Uhhh...
Brodie is much better than the AHL players. Utilized properly he is a two-way defenseman who should pace for 50+ points yearly while setting the tempo. Guys like that are precious.

Hamonic otoh...