[News Roundup] The rebuild was supposed to be more painful than this

[foshizzle11]

Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle

Like many, I think next year is going to be more painful. Our young guys are starting to play well, which is great, but I think we will drop off a bit next year.

Cammy who's a big key to recent success will likely be gone and not replaced immediately with anyone (which is fine).

Wouldn't be shocked to see Hudler moved if a good package is offered, and other veterans like Glencross will likely be gone by deadline (maybe not a huge loss). Point being though, we will be losing some of our decent older players, and not replacing them with players ready to perform at that level yet.

And then comes the pain of the expectations set this year. They will be two fold. One, by playing as well as they have, they will subconsiously up our expectations of the group next year. They exceed expectations (that were very low) this year, but next year we'll expect to see further progress. Not sure if that's realistic and will make next year more painful if they aren't able to do it.

Two, we have semented our reputation this year as a hard working team, that can't be taken lightly by anyone. Other teams will be more prepared for us next year, and will play us tougher I think.

Next year might just be the most painful year of the rebuild I think. Higher expectations, less veteran talent, and still maybe a year away from our young guys really being ready to take the mantel.

We can't lose those guys, we will not reach the cap floor. This makes little sense, if they leave they will be replaced with more veterans with higher salaries than all these new guys.

I don't see how we regress next year. You usually don't get backwards once players start to improve with more experience. Ever tried coaching before? Things get better, not worse and most of these young guys filling in the gaps will only increase our competitiveness knowing they have a chance to lead this team and play top 6 minutes if they play hard.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

That's going to be key. You can't expect Giordano to repeat this season. Hopefully he does, but you can't go into 2014-15 counting on it. Unknown future of Cammalleri impacts things. OTOH, hopefully a healthy Glencross mitigates some of that potential loss. Other than Sven, pretty much all of our kids have stepped in and contributed positively in whatever roles they were given. It is inevitable that some will take steps back.

A great deal has gone right for us this year, and we're still 26th in the league. People need to keep that in mind. I would like to see the team as a whole take steps forward next year, even if some individuals step back. We're not likely to make the playoffs next year (duh), but if we end up as a serious participant in the Connor McDavid conversation, this team would be going the wrong way.

And a fair amount has gone wrong this season. Injuries to most of our top players in Giordano, Glencross, Cammalleri, Monahan, Ramo, Hudler, etc. early in the season we lost a bunch of games to flukey 3rd period goals as our Euro goalies were adapting to the NHL.

The argument can easily go both ways. In some ways we!'very been unlucky this season and in other ways we've been unlucky. Personally I doubt we'll see a regression, the only question mark for me is goal scoring. Good chance we'll be better next season IMO.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

The milestone point in the season is the Canucks brawl game.
Run the numbers after that one. It's 24 games now. Decent sample size. You will find the Flames are 14-9-1 since then, with only two losses by more than a goal (and one included empty netter). .

Yeah, that number has been repeated to death by now which is why I looked at some other numbers. I just feel that looking at different numbers at the same time makes for a better truth than just staring at one set. Just another POV, not really a different opinion.

I don't think it makes a huge difference. The Brawl clearly helped bring the team out of a slump, and we've been enjoying a good run since then. We're not going to be consistently this good any time soon, but I think it's not completely unrealistic to think that our highs right now could be our average sometime in the future.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle

Could be true, but I'm gonig to guess our veterans next year are Gio, Glencross and Stajan. I think Burke will find other homes for Hudler and Wideman, and he won't be successful in retaining Cammy.

But even if that's not the case, I still feel like the team will be pretty stagnant next year in terms of ability (young players will continue to grow but won't take the next step quite yet), but our expectations will be higher and our opponents will be more ready for us. End result, tougher year.......hopefully I'm wrong, but I'm also ok with next year being a tough one.

IMO only way Hudler goes is if Cammy re-signs.

Can't see any way that Burke lets both go with no replacement, and actually due to the cap floor we actually probably can't get rid of all those players you listed without signing or trading for high priced replacements.

[thymebalm]

I think a lot of people are glossing over the fact that the biggest question mark in the whole rebuild was not where the goals would come from, but who the heck was going to play net in the KPE. We got 1st rounders and prospects aplenty from Jay-Bou and Iggy, but when Kipper walked, we had nothing to show for it.

We started the season with a bunch of question marks in Ramo, Berra, Ortio, Brossoit, and MacDonald.

I think we have answers to a lot of those question marks now. Berra is a 2nd rounder in the coming draft, MacDonald will be gone on July 1st and Brossoit was used as leverage in the Smid trade.

This has left us with Ortio as a strong #1 in the minors, and Ramo as the uncontested starter in the pros.

After Karri took the crease back from Berra at the end of November (his adjustment period getting used to NHL travel/rink size/regulations again) he's gone .924%SV, 1.83GAA, 11-6-3 in 23GP. Goaltending was a huge wild card, and it cost us some of the early season, but if Ramo can tread water at this rate, we've got goaltending next year, which is a huge improvement for the roster. The sample size is small, but this is closer to where he was projected to be than the numbers he put up to start the year.

Equally good is we were able to determine that Berra isn't a good fit for this team, and we turned that asset into a 2nd pick.

If reliable backup goaltending isn't had on the UFA front, Ortio has shown he can win in the NHL, which is more than most our recent backups can say for themselves. On an emergency recall Ortio managed to climb ahead of Toskala, Irving, McElhinney, Joesph, Boucher, Keetley, and Sauve ( and the mysterious case of Dany Taylor) in backup goaltending wins with 4 in the Kipper/KPE(Post-Kipper Era). He needs only one more to tie the Calgary Tower himself, Henrik Karlsson.

^What I mean to say is even if Ortio plays backup, he's not worse than the crappy backups we've had of late. Without outside help, by cutting ties with Berra and MacDonald and by putting confidence in the Finns, goaltending improves. We will see if it gets further bolstered by a free agent in the summer.

Goaltending started the year an F. We could finish this season a C- and rise to a C+ if the Heat make noise in front of Orts in the playoffs or with a signing.

For year one of a full-scale rebuild, solving any of the goaltending (even in the short term) is a huge plus.

[Enoch Root]

^ completely agree.

Started the season with what could only be described as the 30th best goaltending situation. No problem, let's play 'em and see what we've got.

Well, the progression in net has been better than anyone could have hoped for. Ramo is looking pretty solid and Ortio is way beyond anyone's wildest expectations.

I think the most under-rated aspect of the success of the last 25 or 30 games is that the Flames have been getting decent NHL goaltending.

Far from done. But the hope at the beginning of the year was: can one of these guys step up?

Well, two of them have stepped up (or at least progressed) and we still have Gillies in our back pocket

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

And a fair amount has gone wrong this season. Injuries to most of our top players in Giordano, Glencross, Cammalleri, Monahan, Ramo, Hudler, etc. early in the season we lost a bunch of games to flukey 3rd period goals as our Euro goalies were adapting to the NHL.

The argument can easily go both ways. In some ways we!'very been unlucky this season and in other ways we've been unlucky. Personally I doubt we'll see a regression, the only question mark for me is goal scoring. Good chance we'll be better next season IMO.

True enough. Though I wasn't thinking so much in terms of wins and losses or the state of most of the vets (even if I did mention Gio and Scoreface...). But when you look at the prospects we've recalled, who has been a disappointment other than Sven? Berra maybe, but he was still parlayed into a good draft pick. Horak and Reinahrt a bit perhaps, but Ward and Hartley seem to have nearly all of these kids going the right direction from the moment they don the Flaming C. The injuries have certainly sucked, but those same injuries have given us a chance to both see what these kids can do at the NHL level and reward them for what they've done at the AHL level.

[greentree]

Great post thymebalm.
I am predicting we see post-season in 2016.