[Rumour] Brooks: Hamonic could be had. Fox not available.

[Jason14h]

The gamble was the Flames would be better (top 10) and the picks would be less valuable.

The issue is we added a better goalie and a better D (in theory- maybe we actually downgraded from Engelland) and yet we had a terrible record .

I doubt anyone is complaining if the first was 23rd overall.

However, that does not excuse the trade. BT screwed up and we have to live with it. But that is always a chance when dealing picks .

And there’s still a decent chance none of the guys picked ever contribute to the NYI..... or they pick a Barzal and we feel like the Oilers!

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Yrebmi

Hamonic did not come cheap, but he was not over priced either.
A first and 2 seconds was and is market value.
Something else to consider - if not a Flame, there is an fair chance he would be on the Oiler's roster last year.

Edit

I like to think he only rescinded when it looked like they might send him to Edmonton

Honestly if the Oilers got him for the price of a 1st and two 2nd's would you be worried as a Flames fan that they just got a lot better? I wouldn't. The guy isn't a difference maker and we would probably be lumping that deal with all of Chia's other bad trades. I don't have a hate on for Hamonic but defense was a position of strength for this organization at the time of the trade and it just seemed like bad asset management when the team badly needed a top scoring winger and more scoring depth amongst the forward group that a year later still hasn't been addressed.

[theslymonkey]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Honestly if the Oilers got him for the price of a 1st and two 2nd's would you be worried as a Flames fan that they just got a lot better? I wouldn't. The guy isn't a difference maker and we would probably be lumping that deal with all of Chia's other bad trades.

Yes. He's definitely a difference maker. He just doesn't put up huge numbers. He's the steadying force. You put him beside Klefbom, Nurse or Larsson and that pair is instantly upgraded.

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Honestly if the Oilers got him for the price of a 1st and two 2nd's would you be worried as a Flames fan that they just got a lot better? I wouldn't. The guy isn't a difference maker and we would probably be lumping that deal with all of Chia's other bad trades.

Yeah I like Hamonic but the idea we had to worry about him playing for the Oilers is kind of silly.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by theslymonkey

Yes. He's definitely a difference maker. He just doesn't put up huge numbers. He's the steadying force. You put him beside Klefbom, Nurse or Larsson and that pair is instantly upgraded.

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

Like he steadied Brodie? Did the Islanders miss his steadying force? I'm not buying that as he was awful at times in the first half of the season and in the 2nd half was steady but being steady isn't going to take a team to the next level.

[theslymonkey]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Like he steadied Brodie? Did the Islanders miss his steadying force? I'm not buying that as he was awful at times in the first half of the season and in the 2nd half was steady but being steady isn't going to take a team to the next level.

It must be summer...

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by theslymonkey

It must be summer...

Sent from my SM-G965W using Tapatalk

Yes because you have obviously forgotten the regular season already. Hamonic played his best hockey when the team collapsed in the back half of the season. If there was ever an exhibit of how he isn't a difference maker that is it as when he played his best it didn't move the needle for the team at all.

[GranteedEV]

The big issue with the Hamonic trade is that Tre misread which parts of the Stone acquisition had worked and which had not.

Stone was a "success" because his one timer was something Brodie and our forwards were setting him up for, while being mobile enough to not be Dennis Wideman in the neutral/D zone. Tre/Burke et all claimed he was a success because he was big, physical, and righthand shooting. Hamonic is a better defensive player than Stone without a semblance of a doubt, but we lost the dangerous, booming point shot in the process, which in turn took away Brodie's default play from the left point (the sweep across to his partner for a perfectly setup one timer).

I still think Hamonic can be salvaged with a capable partner that's more of a gunner (Giordano or Kylington) and likewise pair Brodie with a shooting threat (Hamilton - or move Brodie back to the right where he is a multithreat and pair him with Kulak - or the best of both worlds in Giordano). I think saying Hamonic was our 2nd best D is way off the mark. For half the season he even struggled on the PK with Giordano as his partner. He was an offensive black hole. And it took him way too deep into the season to start playing NHL-calibre gapping. And he was our fifth most valuable outlet passer after Giordano, Kulak, Hamilton and Brodie. Pure defensive player in purely the defensive zone is such a small part of being a defenseman. Hamonic is not Chris Tanev where his play in the other two zones is so near-flawless that it made up for extremely weak O zone play.

[djsFlames]

The flawed assumption made with the harmonic deal was that the Flames would be able to replicate the scoring from the year before and he would round out what was assumed to be a strong defensive corps. But Backlund and Frolik fell off and didn't perform like top six players as they did in their big season and the bottom six was below average in production, so everything ended up hinging entirely on line one, and the odd moments of brilliance from Tkachuk when we wasn't injured or suspended. On the back end pairing one was fine, but Brodie was a shell of his former self which probably sucked for harmonic initially despite improving individually as the year wore on. But the two were largely not in sync and didn't work together, and a lot of backbreaking goals against fell on those two.

I hope brad sees and has learned a valuable lesson about forward depth from this past year and does well to rectify that here. And maybe, just maybe, different pairing combinations are something that isn't foreign to Bill Peters.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Like he steadied Brodie? Did the Islanders miss his steadying force? I'm not buying that as he was awful at times in the first half of the season and in the 2nd half was steady but being steady isn't going to take a team to the next level.

A lot.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

This revisionist history saying that the Flames were strong on defense before acquiring Hamonic is driving me nuts. Re-signing Stone was not anywhere close to a sure thing. The Flames had this as their top 6 on the depth chart before that trade:

Giordano-Hamilton
Brodie-Bartkowski
Kulak-Wotherspoon

On what planet would you all have been satisfied with that as your defense to start the year? There was a major hole that needed filling, and Treliving filled it, pretty well actually. Bartkowski was horrible, Wotherspoon is a career AHLer, and Kulak was really inconsistent.

Andersson and Kylington were both at least a full year in the minors away from possibly having an NHL job, Kylington especially. Fox was at least a year or two away.

The trade happened before the draft, so we didn't even have Valimaki in the fold yet.

The Stone signing happened a couple of weeks later to help round out the defense until the kids were ready.

The need was real. We've been fortunate to see such good progress from all of Andersson, Kylington, Fox, and Valimaki, but it would be foolish to think that all of those prospects would all make such steady progress. 1 year later, we now have the depth to be able to trade a defenseman away for a forward, but let's not pretend we had that same perspective on our organizational depth heading into last off-season.

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

This revisionist history saying that the Flames were strong on defense before acquiring Hamonic is driving me nuts. Re-signing Stone was not anywhere close to a sure thing. The Flames had this as their top 6 on the depth chart before that trade:

Giordano-Hamilton
Brodie-Bartkowski
Kulak-Wotherspoon

On what planet would you all have been satisfied with that as your defense to start the year? There was a major hole that needed filling, and Treliving filled it, pretty well actually. Bartkowski was horrible, Wotherspoon is a career AHLer, and Kulak was really inconsistent.

Andersson and Kylington were both at least a full year in the minors away from possibly having an NHL job, Kylington especially. Fox was at least a year or two away.

The trade happened before the draft, so we didn't even have Valimaki in the fold yet.

The Stone signing happened a couple of weeks later to help round out the defense until the kids were ready.

The need was real. We've been fortunate to see such good progress from all of Andersson, Kylington, Fox, and Valimaki, but it would be foolish to think that all of those prospects would all make such steady progress. 1 year later, we now have the depth to be able to trade a defenseman away for a forward, but let's not pretend we had that same perspective on our organizational depth heading into last off-season.

Agreed to a point (I think your depth chart is way off).

At the same time though, Treliving very clearly misread his roster and more importantly - his coach. You don't trade a 1st and two 2nd round picks for a 2nd pairing defenceman unless you think you're close - Tree thought they were close, he was wrong.

I like Hamonic, and it's cool he's a Flame. He's the type of player I want on this team - but I still hate that trade. The team just wasn't in a place to spending those type of assets for that roster spot, and the move reeks of impatience.

It's a sunk cost now though, so you move forward. This is a very difficult summer for Treliving as he sent a pretty clear message to the fan base last year when he spent those assets. He said "we're going for it", and they fell on their face, and now he has to improve his roster. People aren't going to be happy if he simply shuffles deck chairs on the Titanic.

[sureLoss]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

T
The trade happened before the draft, so we didn't even have Valimaki in the fold yet.

Not that I disagree with your post, but the Hamonic trade was done after the 1st round of the 2017 draft, so Valimaki was in in the fold.

Would probably been foolish to assume he could have contributed as a NHL regular at that point though.

[Resolute 14]

I'm amused at how all of the least reliable people in sports media are trying to trade Flames players.

[GoJetsGo]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Did the Islanders miss his steadying force?

I feel like this has been brought up before when you've tried knocking Hamonic in the past.

Yes, the Islanders very much did miss him. This last season they had the most goals against in the entire league by a fair margin. They were an absolute tire fire defensively.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

Agreed to a point (I think your depth chart is way off).

At the same time though, Treliving very clearly misread his roster and more importantly - his coach. You don't trade a 1st and two 2nd round picks for a 2nd pairing defenceman unless you think you're close - Tree thought they were close, he was wrong.

I like Hamonic, and it's cool he's a Flame. He's the type of player I want on this team - but I still hate that trade. The team just wasn't in a place to spending those type of assets for that roster spot, and the move reeks of impatience.

It's a sunk cost now though, so you move forward. This is a very difficult summer for Treliving as he sent a pretty clear message to the fan base last year when he spent those assets. He said "we're going for it", and they fell on their face, and now he has to improve his roster. People aren't going to be happy if he simply shuffles deck chairs on the Titanic.

Disagree. I think he was accurate in thinking they were close, and adding pieces like Hamonic and Smith put them in a good position.

Unfortunately, the season didn't go as planned, and then totally unraveled.

That happens. But his assessment at the time was accurate and justified, IMO.

[Roof-Daddy]

Treliving misjudged his depth forwards last season, and even hinted at it before the season started by stating that his biggest worry was where the goals were going to come from.

Versteeg getting hurt and Jagr falling flat on his face were the final nails in that coffin that had already been built by a flat lining Bennett, a pulse-less Brouwer and drop offs from Backlund and Frolik.

Flames top 10 scorers from their 2016/17 playoff seasonn:

Gaudreau
Monahan
Backlund
Hamilton
Tkachuk
Frolik
Giordano
Versteeg
Brodie
Bennett

Flames top 10 scorers from last season:

Gaudreau
Monahan
Tkachuk
Backlund
Hamilton
Ferland
Giordano
Brodie
Bennett
Jankowski

So not a lot of changes to the scoring up front from being a playoff team a year earlier, yet they add a full year of Stone, upgrade Elliott to Smith and also add Hamonic, but somehow they drop 10 points in the standings.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

Treliving misjudged his depth forwards last season, and even hinted at it before the season started by stating that his biggest worry was where the goals were going to come from.

Versteeg getting hurt and Jagr falling flat on his face were the final nails in that coffin that had already been built by a flat lining Bennett, a pulse-less Brouwer and drop offs from Backlund and Frolik.

Flames top 10 scorers from their 2016/17 playoff seasonn:

Gaudreau
Monahan
Backlund
Hamilton
Tkachuk
Frolik
Giordano
Versteeg
Brodie
Bennett

Flames top 10 scorers from last season:

Gaudreau
Monahan
Tkachuk
Backlund
Hamilton
Ferland
Giordano
Brodie
Bennett
Jankowski

So not a lot of changes to the scoring up front from being a playoff team a year earlier, yet they add a full year of Stone, upgrade Elliott to Smith and also add Hamonic, but somehow they drop 10 points in the standings.

As you say, basically the same team that made the playoffs the prior year, but improved, and yet he miscalculated?

The fact is that the team underperformed and then unraveled. That is on the coaches and the players.

But it doesn't mean he misread the team. It simply means they had a #### year.

The argument that is being made by the 'misread' statement, is that acquiring Hamonic was a bad idea because the team wasn't good enough to make a trade like that.

What I am saying is that that argument is hindsight: the team was definitely good enough to justify that trade, at the time the trade was made.

Yes, things fell apart afterwards. But that doesn't make the assessment wrong.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by GoJetsGo

I feel like this has been brought up before when you've tried knocking Hamonic in the past.

Yes, the Islanders very much did miss him. This last season they had the most goals against in the entire league by a fair margin. They were an absolute tire fire defensively.

Did they miss his -21, which lead the team by a country mile, on the backend to settle things down? Or did they miss Ryan Strome's Doug Jarvis like abilities as a shutdown center?

Both are probably valid based on your "Isles give up most goals in the league and Travis is gone, therefore they missed him terribly".

I think the fact that it is an almost dead certainty that one would get less for Hamonic today in a trade than the bounty that BT gave up is a pretty good indicator of his value around the league.

But we have an asset for at least 2 more years, a guy who is probably knocking on the door of being one of the top 100 dmen in the league (probably could be as high as the 93rd best dman in hockey). That ain't nothing.

[dustygoon]

Originally Posted by GoJetsGo

I feel like this has been brought up before when you've tried knocking Hamonic in the past.

Yes, the Islanders very much did miss him. This last season they had the most goals against in the entire league by a fair margin. They were an absolute tire fire defensively.

Do you think bad goaltending might have been "very much" a reason too? I can't tell if you are saying lack of Hamonic was the main reason their season stunk.