Brad Treliving needs to go

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

I think if you accept that the Flames were a lower level team when he took over 8 years ago (despite the fluke 14-15 season), then you have to be willing to criticize the fact that they have been a cap ceiling team since the 15-16 season, when the team still needed to acquire foundational pieces to compete for a Stanley Cup. Since that season when the Flames became a cap ceiling team the following teams have reached the Cup Semi-final from the Flames' path:

Anaheim
St. Louis
Nashville
San Jose
Las Vegas
Winnipeg
Colorado
Edmonton
Dallas
Montreal(when the Flames were in the Canadian Division)

Now factoring in teams who did not hit the salary cap ceiling for most of those same years:

Seattle (new team)
Arizona

Now, account for the fact that the 2014 Kings and 2015 Blackhawks were just beginning to rebuild after successful Cup runs, and you've got the following teams remaining in the West, and you're left with Calgary's actual peers in terms of postseason success:

Vancouver
Calgary
Minnesota


To me personally, that is underwhelming company for a "Great GM". Especially considering some of the GMs on that first list of teams are far from "Great"

High watermark is one way to evaluate things, but its got obvious limitations.

If you want to hand-wave away LAK and CHI then you should also acknowledge that each of these teams were also built - or at least acquired many of their most valuable assets used in building - long before Tre came on the scene in CGY:

San Jose
Anaheim
Nashville
St. Louis

Which leaves two great(ish) teams that have actually been built in the last decade:

Colorado (still many important pieces in place pre-2014)
Las Vegas (unprecedented situation...uncertain future)

...and then a pretty substantial drop-off to the next tier(s) (series wins):
Dallas (5)
Winnipeg (3)
Edmonton (3)

Calgary (2)
Minnesota (1)
Vancouver (1)

I'm not sure there is actually very much daylight between those 6 teams.


I don't have a particular point, other than it really takes a long time.

We point to Gio/Backlund/Brodie/Gaudreau/Monny/Bennett...Bouma/Ferland/Kulak/Bartschi/Byron as a great starting point of young(ish) cost-controlled talent. I'm not sure it actually is compared to what current contenders had in 2014:

MacKinnon/Landeskog/ROR/Duchene/Barrie/E Johnson/Varlamov

Stamkos/Hedman/Vasilevskiy/Kucherov/Palat/Killorn/T Johnson/Drouin...Callahan/Carle/Gudas

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

I think if you accept that the Flames were a lower level team when he took over 8 years ago (despite the fluke 14-15 season), then you have to be willing to criticize the fact that they have been a cap ceiling team since the 15-16 season, when the team still needed to acquire foundational pieces to compete for a Stanley Cup. Since that season when the Flames became a cap ceiling team the following teams have reached the Cup Semi-final from the Flames' path:

Anaheim
St. Louis
Nashville
San Jose
Las Vegas
Winnipeg
Colorado
Edmonton
Dallas
Montreal(when the Flames were in the Canadian Division)

Now factoring in teams who did not hit the salary cap ceiling for most of those same years:

Seattle (new team)
Arizona

Now, account for the fact that the 2014 Kings and 2015 Blackhawks were just beginning to rebuild after successful Cup runs, and you've got the following teams remaining in the West, and you're left with Calgary's actual peers in terms of postseason success:

Vancouver
Calgary
Minnesota


To me personally, that is underwhelming company for a "Great GM". Especially considering some of the GMs on that first list of teams are far from "Great"

So in other words you think Treliving is a worse GM than Ken Holland. Or the fired Bergeron. OK.

Or you’ve made my point that the odd PO success might just not be the telling factor some make it out to be.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

I'll call Markstroms series against the Oilers a one off, but I guess that remains to be seen.
Obviously the defense is very good.
What is lacking up front?
Two top six forwards, including a C?
An entire second line?

What is 'required' to truly compete?

I would say what is missing is one top six forward (a 30-30 guy) and a proven starting goalie. Hopefully Markstrom can be that guy. He has never done it in a playoff run before and looked terrible in the Oilers series. The Flames have a two year window so I guess now is the the time to do it. In two years they have to pay (as in I expect these guys will get substantive raises) Lindholm, Hanifin, Dube and Kylington and pay or replace Tanev, Toffoli and Backlund.

[Roof-Daddy]

Markstrom is a proven starting goalie lol

He sucks against the oilers, which is unfortunate obviously, but he's a proven starter who was just top 3 in Venzina voting. To say he's not a proven starter is laughable.

[Toonage]

Also, regardless of how bad he played against the Oilers (and the team was awful too) we seem to forget just how awesome he was against Dallas, only because Oettinger went full blown cheat code.

Flames play the Kings in round 2 and its Calgary vs. Colorado in the WCF.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

Markstrom is a proven starting goalie lol

He sucks against the oilers, which is unfortunate obviously, but he's a proven starter who was just top 3 in Venzina voting. To say he's not a proven starter is laughable.

I don’t think I said he wasn’t. I said he has not done it in the playoffs when the lights are brightest, when the pressure is amped up. Hopefully he does it this year.

Edit- poor choice of words by me in the first post, I said it but meant it in the context of the playoffs. Of course he is a proven starting goalie in the regular season. You were correct in calling out my loose language around Markstrom.

[Roof-Daddy]

nm

[JohnnyB]

Markstrom certainly crashed hard against the Oilers, but he was great against Dallas in round one. He swung like a pendulum between those two rounds.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

I don’t think I said he wasn’t. I said he has not done it in the playoffs when the lights are brightest, when the pressure is amped up. Hopefully he does it this year.

Edit- poor choice of words by me in the first post, I said it but meant it in the context of the playoffs. Of course he is a proven starting goalie in the regular season. You were correct in calling out my loose language around Markstrom.

Markstrom is a proven starting goalie in the playoffs. Before an absolutely spectacular performance v. Dallas he won a series v. St Louis almost singlehandedly.

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[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Toonage

Also, regardless of how bad he played against the Oilers (and the team was awful too) we seem to forget just how awesome he was against Dallas, only because Oettinger went full blown cheat code.

Flames play the Kings in round 2 and its Calgary vs. Colorado in the WCF.

Or one deflected shot by Dallas and Flames don’t get out of round one. I don’t really like the what ifs. The team crapped the bed against the Oilers for some reason, a team that is totally beatable.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Toonage

Also, regardless of how bad he played against the Oilers (and the team was awful too) we seem to forget just how awesome he was against Dallas, only because Oettinger went full blown cheat code.

Flames play the Kings in round 2 and its Calgary vs. Colorado in the WCF.

Upon your premise of the Kings beating the Oilers, I can't see how you can assume that the Flames would have certainly beaten the Kings, considering how easily the Oilers beat the Flames.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Or one deflected shot by Dallas and Flames don’t get out of round one. I don’t really like the what ifs. The team crapped the bed against the Oilers for some reason, a team that is totally beatable.

Johnny let it slip a bit on the chiclets podcast and I think it has to do with their final 3 games against the Oilers in the regular season and game 1 in the playoffs.

Flames best Edmonton 3-1 at home where the Oilers generated nothing and got a lucky bounce goal. They then went on to score 9 goals in the next 2 games against them. Johnny basically said after game 1 they thought it would be easy.

They got into a style of game where they decided to trade chances and couldn’t get out of it. Markstrom struggled but the team lost their identity. Even then they had a 2 goal lead in game 2 and 5 and lost and also came back from 3-0 to tie game 4 and lost. The series should have been longer or even a flames win.

Hearing Johnny say that on the chiclets podcast makes it easier to see him move on.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

Upon your premise of the Kings beating the Oilers, I can't see how you can assume that the Flames would have certainly beaten the Kings, considering how easily the Oilers beat the Flames.

I think the Flames don't match up well against the Oilers. They have struggled to contain McDavid and Leon. And then their goalie couldn't stop even average chances from those two.

But with all that, as Sutter pointed out, most of the games were jump balls in the 3rd.

but i still don't like the Oil as a matchup for the Flames.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Markstrom is a proven starting goalie in the playoffs. Before an absolutely spectacular performance v. Dallas he won a series v. St Louis almost singlehandedly.

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Was just about to say this. Markstrom has probably shown the highest ability to play in the playoffs of anyone on the Flames roster, aside from maybe Coleman and Lucic of 10 yrs ago.

Of course he's also shown that he's not always great. I don't think he was the Canucks problem in rd 2 against VGK as they failed to score in 2 of his 4 starts, but it also didn't seem like a crazy idea to switch to Demko...it just seemed like a hail-mary, and it nearly worked (and no, switching to Vladar would have been dumb).

More reason to re-think Markstrom's load mgmt, though.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Was just about to say this. Markstrom has probably shown the highest ability to play in the playoffs of anyone on the Flames roster, aside from maybe Coleman and Lucic of 10 yrs ago.

Of course he's also shown that he's not always great. I don't think he was the Canucks problem in rd 2 against VGK as they failed to score in 2 of his 4 starts, but it also didn't seem like a crazy idea to switch to Demko...it just seemed like a hail-mary, and it nearly worked (and no, switching to Vladar would have been dumb).

More reason to re-think Markstrom's load mgmt, though.

Wasn't he hurt/dying of fatigue rather than 'pulled' in Vancouver/Vegas?

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

Johnny let it slip a bit on the chiclets podcast and I think it has to do with their final 3 games against the Oilers in the regular season and game 1 in the playoffs.

Flames best Edmonton 3-1 at home where the Oilers generated nothing and got a lucky bounce goal. They then went on to score 9 goals in the next 2 games against them. Johnny basically said after game 1 they thought it would be easy.

They got into a style of game where they decided to trade chances and couldn’t get out of it. Markstrom struggled but the team lost their identity. Even then they had a 2 goal lead in game 2 and 5 and lost and also came back from 3-0 to tie game 4 and lost. The series should have been longer or even a flames win.

Hearing Johnny say that on the chiclets podcast makes it easier to see him move on.

I just don’t know how you get into a style of game that you can’t get out of. Sure maybe for a period or worst case, a whole game. But a series?

Flames are as capable of playing the Oilers as anyone. I can’t think of a reason why the Flames personnel or style makes it harder to match up against the two superstars. But it does seem like the Oilers have a lot of confidence against the Flames which needs to be something this club makes a priority in addressing.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

I just don’t know how you get into a style of game that you can’t get out of. Sure maybe for a period or worst case, a whole game. But a series?

Flames are as capable of playing the Oilers as anyone. I can’t think of a reason why the Flames personnel or style makes it harder to match up against the two superstars. But it does seem like the Oilers have a lot of confidence against the Flames which needs to be something this club makes a priority in addressing.

Well I think one issue is the lack of team speed against McDavid.

[Goriders]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

Markstrom is a proven starting goalie lol

He sucks against the oilers, which is unfortunate obviously, but he's a proven starter who was just top 3 in Venzina voting. To say he's not a proven starter is laughable.

He gets hung out to dry against the Oilers is a better description of what I saw.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Goriders

He gets hung out to dry against the Oilers is a better description of what I saw.

I don’t agree with this guy often but this post - yup. I think Markstrom’s worst game against the Oilers was the one they won. Did he stand on his head? No. Were some goals saveable? Sure, with a spectacular save. But how many Royal Road, or crease tap in goals did the Flames allow to be set up? Tanev out/at 50% sure didn’t help.

[Jiri Hrdina]

I think it was all of the this:
- The team defense was poor and they were taken out of their game.
- However, Markstrom was also very poor in the series giving up several goals that were stoppable.

Both.