This years starting lineup

[AC]

Raymond can play RW.

At the time of his signing it was brought up as one of the reasons he was signed; his ability to slide around the lineup and still be effective.

[mile]

Originally Posted by ForeverFlameFan

Is there even room to have both Johnny and Sven in the lineup as LW's at the same time with the signings of Raymond and Byron?

There is always room - if one or both make the team it'll simply bump the players they have outperformed down the lineup.

And as mentioned above, Raymond and Byron can both play RW (in fact Byron played mostly RW last season). I don't even view Byron as being in direct competition with either of those players because he is a bottom six player competing for a bottom six spot.

[ForeverFlameFan]

Something tells me D. Jones will be the 13th/14th forward by the start of the season and will need to prove himself a spot on the team. Maybe I am optimistic, but hopefully Gaudreau and Baertschi make it the team:

Forwards
Glencross - Stajan - Raymond
Gaudreau - Backlund - Hudler
Baertschi - Monahan - Colborne
Bollig - Bouma - McGrattan
Byron, Jones

[Heavy Jack]

Could you imagine a 4 on 4 line that featured Gaudreau / Byron ??? We will win every OT hahaha

[stemit14]

Good point.

Gaudreau-backlund-hudler
Baertschi-Monahan-colbourne
Glencross-stajan-Raymond
Bollig/bouma-Byron-mcgrattan/jones

Brodie-giordano
Wideman-Smid
Russell-Engelland
Wotherspoon

Hiller-ramo

First call ups from the farm: Reinhart and granlund.

[mile]

Unless he is exceptional at training camp I think Baertschi needs to start the season in the AHL and stay there for at least the first half of the season. Although he has shown improvement, he hasn't perfected his game in the AHL yet.

[Monahan23]

Originally Posted by ForeverFlameFan

Something tells me D. Jones will be the 13th/14th forward by the start of the season and will need to prove himself a spot on the team. Maybe I am optimistic, but hopefully Gaudreau and Baertschi make it the team:

Forwards
Glencross - Stajan - Raymond
Gaudreau - Backlund - Hudler
Baertschi - Monahan - Colborne
Bollig - Bouma - McGrattan
Byron, Jones

I was suggesting that before the signings were made only replace Raymond with Vrbata and Bollig with Downie. But ya that could work

[stemit14]

Originally Posted by ForeverFlameFan

Something tells me D. Jones will be the 13th/14th forward by the start of the season and will need to prove himself a spot on the team. Maybe I am optimistic, but hopefully Gaudreau and Baertschi make it the team:

Forwards
Glencross - Stajan - Raymond
Gaudreau - Backlund - Hudler
Baertschi - Monahan - Colborne
Bollig - Bouma - McGrattan
Byron, Jones

This seems like a good fit for this season. People are way too quick to write off baertschi... I still think he will become a legit top six forward in the NHL. Having gaudreau and baertschi as the one-two punch on the left side in the future would be awesome!

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by ForeverFlameFan

Something tells me D. Jones will be the 13th/14th forward by the start of the season and will need to prove himself a spot on the team. Maybe I am optimistic, but hopefully Gaudreau and Baertschi make it the team:

Forwards
Glencross - Stajan - Raymond
Gaudreau - Backlund - Hudler
Baertschi - Monahan - Colborne
Bollig - Bouma - McGrattan
Byron, Jones

I vote guys NOT in their contract year as line-mates with Gaudreau

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

I vote guys NOT in their contract year as line-mates with Gaudreau

and I vote not to put Gaudreau with one of our smallest and least physical wingers. We don't want him killed in his first few games.

[Samuelsson]

Baffles me that some people have Monahan on the third line. It helps if you imagine that these people are crack addicts, because then you can justify their reasoning.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Samuelsson

Baffles me that some people have Monahan on the third line. It helps if you imagine that these people are crack addicts, because then you can justify their reasoning.

For me the first three lines are pretty much interchangeable depending on who's hot and who we are playing.

[Read Only]

Originally Posted by Samuelsson

Baffles me that some people have Monahan on the third line. It helps if you imagine that these people are crack addicts, because then you can justify their reasoning.

Baffles my mind that people think the NHL is like a sim league where if someone is listed on the 3rd line they can only play 15% of the time or that if someone writes out lines and one is listed 3rd they have to play a specific role only.

The traditional 4 line system where the top two lines are offense, the 3rd line is a shutdown line and the 4th line is crap is gone. With the rebuilding Flames this is even more likely. The Flames likely have 3 2nd-ish lines and a 4th. My guess is Monahan's line gets a lot of softer minutes with offensive starts, Stajans line gets the tougher minutes with defensive zone starts and Backlunds line is a mix of both as the most "traditional" top line minutes.

[EVERLAST]

Hartley justified playing time through meritocracy.

People.need to remember thats the way he coaches and thats why we were successful.

I predict the naysayers will be wrong about the Flames being worse than last year.

We were involved in a record number of 1 goal games last year and I think Bob will be reminding them of that allot this year.

Year end intrrview with Hartley he said his challenge was for the players to be prepared to bring 5% more this year acknowledging how thats how close the differnce between winning and losing was.

I am sure to start the year we will all be amazed how competitve thia team is regardless of who is in the lineup

Hopefully Bob gets exten ded as a result

[stemit14]

It's exciting to have so many guys knocking on the door to make the team full time... Baertschi, gaudreau, granlund, Reinhart, Byron, Bennett (long shot I know), etc. Will be excited to see any of these guys on the team this year at some point.

[ForeverFlameFan]

Originally Posted by Samuelsson

Baffles me that some people have Monahan on the third line. It helps if you imagine that these people are crack addicts, because then you can justify their reasoning.

.... I never stated Monahan having 3rd line minutes. Imo, the top 9 are interchangeable.

[ForeverFlameFan]

Originally Posted by EVERLAST

Hartley justified playing time through meritocracy.

People.need to remember thats the way he coaches and thats why we were successful.

I predict the naysayers will be wrong about the Flames being worse than last year.

We were involved in a record number of 1 goal games last year and I think Bob will be reminding them of that allot this year.

Year end intrrview with Hartley he said his challenge was for the players to be prepared to bring 5% more this year acknowledging how thats how close the differnce between winning and losing was.

I am sure to start the year we will all be amazed how competitve thia team is regardless of who is in the lineup

Hopefully Bob gets exten ded as a result

I'd also like to add that if we want to make the playoffs, we need to give as much effort in the first half of the season as we do in the second half. For some reason, our team always gets hot after 50, 60 games where we are already pretty much out of playoff contention.

[Rick M.]

Possibly because the pressure is off?

[Caged Great]

Baertschi-Monahan-Hudler
Glencross-Backlund-Raymond
Byron-Stajan-Colborne
Bollig-Bouma-McGrattan
Jones

Giordano-Brodie
Wideman-Smid
Engelland-Russell
Wotherspoon as a call up

Hiller/Ramo

In my opinion, any of Gaudreau, Granlund, and Reinhart could possibly be in Baertschi's spot, It'll depend on training camp etc. Also, the lines wouldn't necessarily be the same in other scenarios.

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

Yeesh. If I squint a little, the lineup looks a lot like this.

Smyth – Horcoff – Hemsky
Hall – Nugent-Hopkins – Eberle
Paajarvi – Gagner – Omark
Petrell – Belanger – Jones

Barker – Gilbert
Peckham – Petry
Smid – Sutton

Yuck.