[PGT] Flames lose 3-0 to Blues. The 'they'll never score again' edition

[Classic_Sniper]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

Kadri at 7M is clearly here to be the long term answer at 2C. He's here to do heavy lifting on defense and add significant secondary scoring to take pressure off the first line. Why is he playing like he doesn't have a role?

To me it looks like Kadri is lacking confidence right now and it appears it’s affecting his decision making. Just look at that awful attempted pass he made to Coronato that lead to the shorty against.

If he was playing well with some confidence, he’d probably make a better read and hold on to that puck and make a play towards the net, but because he can’t seem to do anything right at the moment, he’s deferring and it leads to an easy pick off by the defender and a goal the other way.

He probably needs to forget about how his numbers look like right now, however atrocious they look with the impressively bad dash 10 in 8 games. He needs to continue to move his feet and make plays. He made quite a few against the Rangers, but he can’t get flustered and needs to keep at it.

But he’s probably in over his head as a flank guy on the PP. He’s probably better suited around the net as the net front presence guy or at the bumper position.

[RedHawk12]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

No team ever really bottoms out on purpose (the first year or two). Once they've already bottomed out then they commit to a rebuild but they rarely ever start the "rebuild" intentionally.

The Lightning had re-signed Lecavalier, St Louis, and Boyle when they bottomed out for Hedman and Stamkos. They were a cap team that bottomed out and got lucky.

The Oilers didn't intentionally bottom out for all their picks, and were certainly trying to win by the time they got McDavid.

What these teams do however is don't try to make panic moves to salvage bad seasons. When you're in the middle of a bad season then just lean into it and get the high pick.

It's what the Flames should have done in the 20-21 season instead of hiring Sutter mid-season and it's what they should probably do this season if this play continues.

Did you call in to 960 on overtime? If so I agreed 100% with your reasoning

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by habernac

Then stop sucking. Canadian markets are great when you play well.

Maybe but even then memories in most Canadian markets are pretty short.

People pine for the "Gaudreau Days" now but from the Playoffs against Colorado to start of the 21-22 season people were ready to run him out of town.

Austin Matthews and Mitch Marner are great players, can have great seasons, but lose in the playoffs and you still get criticized all offseason like they did in Toronto this past year

If you're a star player in a Canadian market it's always your fault when your team loses in the playoffs. Doesn't matter what you did or if your carried your team to the playoffs in the end it ends up being your fault if you didn't win.

If I was good enough to play in the NHL I'd like to think that I would have loved to play for the Flames, but really if you're just a random Canadian kid without some type of fandom for your local team then why would you want to play in a Canadian market when you can probably play for more money, less pressure, and better weather in one of the US markets.

[TheScorpion]

Originally Posted by RedHawk12

Did you call in to 960 on overtime? If so I agreed 100% with your reasoning

I did, and I specifically cited his Tampa Bay argument

[SuperMatt18]

Scorpion always steals all my good ideas.

[TheScorpion]

Hey I gave you credit. Better than most times.

[RedHawk12]

Yeah, I liked the TB example. I think very few teams plan to tank. Huberdeau and Kadri are not going to prevent us from having to rebuild. In fact, they're probably helping.

[SuperMatt18]

And really you never know if a guy turns it around.

Jeff Skinner looked done in Buffalo, he had 37 points in 112 games over two seasons in Buffalo and was a disaster defensively.

But then with the infusion of young talent, and new coaching staff and new system all of a sudden he's a point per game player again and solid contributor for the Sabres even if he's still overpaid.

Moving assets to get rid of Kadri or Huberdeau's contracts would be the most idiotic thing the Flames could do at this point. You would be doubling down on a mistake and making it worse. They already screwed that up once by attaching a 1st to move Monahan.

[Classic_Sniper]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

The thing I don't get with Huberdeau is that he looked pretty good in the first couple of games this season. Not amazing by any stretch, but pretty good to the point I was starting to believe again. Then just nothing after that. Although I will take invisible over turnover machine.

He looked totally uninterested the last couple of games.

Personally, I don’t remember him or his line looking anything special in the first few games of the season, they ended up potting the game winner late against Winnipeg and then there were a couple goals off of feet and etc, but nothing to write home about. I hear their underlying numbers are good, but that means nothing with this team. Their analytics have looked good since the Gulutzan era and yet they’re still the same team that gets owned by backup goaltenders.

Lindholm and Huberdeau just do not work together with their clashing styles. They had something like 15ish games last season and 7 this season together and have nothing to show for it. 20+ games together and I don’t think we’ve even seen a direct Huberdeau pass to Lindholm goal yet at 5 on 5 yet. I can’t recall a single one, maybe someone will find one out there.

But we’re talking about a pretty large sample size at this point with very little execution, that’s not chemistry. Chemistry is Gaudreau-Lindholm or Lindholm-Tkachuk who routinely put up 4-5 points together in a single night. The current duo conversely just makes it look very very difficult.

[Manhattanboy]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

There no justifiable hockey reason for Lindholm or Hanifin to want to commit the next eight years of their lives to this.

There is no justifiable reason for the Flames to want to commit the next eight years of their payroll to Lindholm or Hanifin.

[RedHawk12]

Yes agreed, Matt. I've thought about it and actually feel like having a few anchor contracts for underperforming players is a great way to force a rebuild because they push you against the cap and prevent you from bringing in players to improve the team.

I'm reading posters talking about maybe only Dallas being able to rebuild while having anchor contracts. I don't think that's true. TB is a good example. LA with the Kopitar/Doughty/Brown contracts is another. San Jose with the Karlsson/Burns contracts is another.

If you look at LA, now that they've rebuild and acquired Dubois and Fiala with some of those assets, Kopitar and Doughty actually have gone back to being positive player for them. Maybe Huberdeau can do the same for us in 5 years.

Skinner was a good example too.

Edit: oh and also Chicago recently holding on to the ghosts of Kane and Toews

[SuperMatt18]

The way they generate offense is very different.

Lindholm likes to go to the soft areas and find a place to shoot. He needs somebody like Gaudreau to create that space for him.

Huberdeau likes to find a soft spot of the ice to the find time to make that killer pass to a team mate driving the net, but he also needs somebody to create that space for him by driving the middle of the ice with speed. (I don't know if it's system or personnel but this roster is horrible at driving the middle of the ice with speed).

They just don't compliment each other (although I do think at least Huberdeau-Lindholm-Mangiapane at least showed flashes even if it didn't work immediately.

Huberdeau-Sharangovich-Coronato
Mangiapane-Lindholm - Ruzicka
Coleman - Kadri - Duehr
Zary - Backlund - Dube

If they aren't going to go back to the lines from game 2-5 then I Would love to see this get a look.

[madmike]

I think this is who the Flames are.

The question of whether to tank or not doesn't matter any more. This team is going to tank naturally. And it's going to get worse once Lindholm and Hanifin go. I can't see the Flames committing to either of them. And I can't really see either playing wanting to stay without a huge overpayment.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

At least Murray is good at fleecing desperate politicians trying to buy votes.

Stole hundreds of millions from this city while half this board cheered it on so they could have the privilege of paying higher seat and concession prices. So embarrassing.

We got bent over so bad for billionaires who scored hundreds of millions for millionaires to play a damn kids game, while hundreds of thousands of citizens struggle to pay their rent and mortgages.

Just disgusting.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by MrMike

The only positive is that we haven’t locked up Hanifin and Lindholm to this god awful core for the next 8 years.

Problem is Conroy is likely negotiating with those two independent of current play. So there's a very good chance one or both are signed regardless of what is happening on the ice.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by dino7c

Lol Oilers booed off the ice too

This is such a Dino7C post. So much so that I actually love it, lol. I was actually going to post "This season is going so bad that Dino7C may make a post that criticizes the Flames at some point ".

[Hockey_Ninja]

Nm

[kyuss275]

I’ve seen posts saying “ I feel sorry for Conroy “. Why? Posters act like he came from another organization. He is part of the crew that created this mess. He has said he believes in this group of players and is trying to lock up the remaining core players. His coaching hire reeks of Geoff ward 2.0. My only hope now is lindholm and hanifin tell him they won’t re-sign under any conditions. The whole team , coaches and management needed to be purged this off season.

[Erick Estrada]

It's becoming clear to me that Rasmus Andersson is the best player on this roster. Without him they look like a team in full tank mode.

[Rutuu]

Originally Posted by jayswin

Stole hundreds of millions from this city while half this board cheered it on so they could have the privilege of paying higher seat and concession prices. So embarrassing.

We got bent over so bad for billionaires who scored hundreds of millions for millionaires to play a damn kids game, while hundreds of thousands of citizens struggle to pay their rent and mortgages.

Just disgusting.

Sounds like the perfect time to push the super weather thread to the top of the page to canvas everyone's opinion on how warm a perfect summer day is.