You can't forget just how close they were to several more wins last year, even with a horrendous number of injuries, rookie goaltenders and placing a lot of responsibility on their prize rookie center.
Flip side is they won a ton of one goal games. That isn't likely to be repeated.
The team worked hard last year, but also got lucky a lot
Your kind of assuming everything goes right which is never does. You point out all these things that could go right but fail to mention the things that could wrong. It will likely be a combination of both. If a couple more go right we could be slightly better. If a couple more go wrong we could be slightly worse. I don't think we should expect a significant change in either direction. In my opinion a lot went right last year and we were still 27th. Bottom 5 is likely where the team will be.
A lot went right as the young guys got a lot of opportunity and ice time.
The problem with that is winning.
Chicago's top 10 highest paid players missed a total of 64 games
Toews, Jonathan » 6
Kane, Patrick » 13
Sharp, Patrick » 4
Seabrook, Brent » 0
Keith, Duncan » 3
Hossa, Marian » 10
Bickell, Bryan » 23
Hjalmarsson, N. » 1
Oduya, Johnny » 5
Leddy, Nick » 0
The Flames highest paid 10 players missed a total of 205 games
Cammalleri, Mike 19
Wideman, Dennis »36
Giordano, Mark » 18
Hudler, Jiri » 8
Jones, David » 34
Stajan, Matt » 19
Smid, Ladislav » 9
Ramo, Karri » 15
Glencross, Curtis » 44
Brodie, T.J. » 1
Chicago had 107 pts -- an 18 pt clearance on the 9th place team.
Would the impact of losing 141 more man-games out of their core been worth 9 wins.... The Flames had Wideman play 22 games with a broken hand as well ie do the Hawks make the playoffs with Seabrook and Kieth missing the same amount of games as Wideman and Gio?
Should we count on the Hawks having the same injury problem this year as the Flames did? The top Hawks have played a lot more hockey over the Last 2 years than the top Flames..... Higher probability of injury?
It seems that the same injury risk factor exists for all teams at the start of the season.
Teams with the high injury rate and man games missed of their top players are more likely to miss the playoffs.
Now that we lack a top end finisher like Cammy I think its going to be a worse year personally unless someone else can fill that void like Bart or Granlund.
I think a bottom five finish is going to be as "hard" usual for the Flames. The work ethic will be there, leadership and maybe one-two surprises from the rookies. I'd expect them to show up pretty much every night again which guarantees some extra points here and there that the other bottom feeders probably won't get.
Going to be at the bottom of the standings, but there is enough toughness on the team that our young players should feel comfortable and well protected.
Losing Cammalleri isn't going to be that big of an issue I think. The first half of the season there were quite a number of posts criticizing him for his lack of offence and defence. He was making terrible decisions with the puck, and kept shooting it from areas that had little chance of scoring, and missing the net quite a lot.
He did heat up in the 2nd half, and he did contribute to some wins there, so I definitely wouldn't say the Flames won't feel it. I just bet that the Flames will be around the same level in terms of goal scoring by season's end.
As for where they finish - I am guessing within a couple of spots up or down. There are always 'surprise' teams that plummet, and some exceed expectations. Ottawa is who I have failing this year, though it is only a matter of time for them before their youth really take over and drive that team up - just won't happen this year I would say.
Just looking forward to some exciting hockey by the Flames this year, win or lose. By far the most entertaining basement team by a mile, and I don't think you need homer glasses to think that way.
Losing Cammalleri isn't going to be that big of an issue I think. The first half of the season there were quite a number of posts criticizing him for his lack of offence and defence. He was making terrible decisions with the puck, and kept shooting it from areas that had little chance of scoring, and missing the net quite a lot.
He did heat up in the 2nd half, and he did contribute to some wins there, so I definitely wouldn't say the Flames won't feel it. I just bet that the Flames will be around the same level in terms of goal scoring by season's end.
As for where they finish - I am guessing within a couple of spots up or down. There are always 'surprise' teams that plummet, and some exceed expectations. Ottawa is who I have failing this year, though it is only a matter of time for them before their youth really take over and drive that team up - just won't happen this year I would say.
Just looking forward to some exciting hockey by the Flames this year, win or lose. By far the most entertaining basement team by a mile, and I don't think you need homer glasses to think that way.
The media surprisingly caught on towards the end of the season, I thought the world was ending because the Flames actually got recognition for their efforts.
A lot went right as the young guys got a lot of opportunity and ice time.
The problem with that is winning.
Chicago's top 10 highest paid players missed a total of 64 games
Toews, Jonathan » 6
Kane, Patrick » 13
Sharp, Patrick » 4
Seabrook, Brent » 0
Keith, Duncan » 3
Hossa, Marian » 10
Bickell, Bryan » 23
Hjalmarsson, N. » 1
Oduya, Johnny » 5
Leddy, Nick » 0
The Flames highest paid 10 players missed a total of 205 games
Cammalleri, Mike 19
Wideman, Dennis »36
Giordano, Mark » 18
Hudler, Jiri » 8
Jones, David » 34
Stajan, Matt » 19
Smid, Ladislav » 9
Ramo, Karri » 15
Glencross, Curtis » 44
Brodie, T.J. » 1
Chicago had 107 pts -- an 18 pt clearance on the 9th place team.
Would the impact of losing 141 more man-games out of their core been worth 9 wins.... The Flames had Wideman play 22 games with a broken hand as well ie do the Hawks make the playoffs with Seabrook and Kieth missing the same amount of games as Wideman and Gio?
Should we count on the Hawks having the same injury problem this year as the Flames did? The top Hawks have played a lot more hockey over the Last 2 years than the top Flames..... Higher probability of injury?
It seems that the same injury risk factor exists for all teams at the start of the season.
Teams with the high injury rate and man games missed of their top players are more likely to miss the playoffs.
One thing you might miss in all of this, is bottom feeder teams always have more man games lost to injuries.
Hockey players are well known for playing through pain, I think the difference bottom feeder who are less worried about playoff seating are more likely to give guys games of for minor injuries. While the Elite teams have their players play through injuries to secure their spot.
A lot went right as the young guys got a lot of opportunity and ice time.
The problem with that is winning.
Chicago's top 10 highest paid players missed a total of 64 games
Toews, Jonathan » 6
Kane, Patrick » 13
Sharp, Patrick » 4
Seabrook, Brent » 0
Keith, Duncan » 3
Hossa, Marian » 10
Bickell, Bryan » 23
Hjalmarsson, N. » 1
Oduya, Johnny » 5
Leddy, Nick » 0
The Flames highest paid 10 players missed a total of 205 games
Cammalleri, Mike 19
Wideman, Dennis »36
Giordano, Mark » 18
Hudler, Jiri » 8
Jones, David » 34
Stajan, Matt » 19
Smid, Ladislav » 9
Ramo, Karri » 15
Glencross, Curtis » 44
Brodie, T.J. » 1
Chicago had 107 pts -- an 18 pt clearance on the 9th place team.
Would the impact of losing 141 more man-games out of their core been worth 9 wins.... The Flames had Wideman play 22 games with a broken hand as well ie do the Hawks make the playoffs with Seabrook and Kieth missing the same amount of games as Wideman and Gio?
First, let's just ignore that for some reason you left off Corey Crawford (who might be one of the more important players on their team) and his $6M salary, yet included Ramo. Crawford missed at least 10 games due to a back injury in Dec/Jan and including him would have bumped Nick Leddy and his 0 games missed off his list.
But to your question...no...I don't think the Blackhawks would have missed the playoffs if they had an extra 141 man games lost due to injury. It sounds like a lot but that's an average of each guy missing about one more game each at some point during the year. On a good team like the Hawks, they have the depth to battle through it. Sure, it may change the outcome in 1-2 games...but to drop their yearly win total by 20% and say they'd fall out of the playoffs is crazy!
Last edited by burnitdown; 07-11-2014 at 01:04 PM.
Reason: Too long
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