Yost: Grading each team's blue line depth

[Calgary4LIfe]

Really, Valimaki has been liking posts on social media where people are arguing about playing Stone ahead of him? Or about trading him to a new organization? He can buzz off if that's true. Know who that reminds me of? Baertschi. I got roasted for saying it at the time, but Baertschi became a terrible entitled prospect that only gave half an effort occasionally. He was lazy and terrible and couldn't be trusted out there, but Feaster was force-feeding him time on the Flames. The second Feaster got fired, Hartley demoted Baertschi.


I feel sorry for Valimaki - injuries have certainly played a role in his development. However, instead of feeling sorry for himself, he should be waking up and realizing that he has the ability to change his fortunes. FFS, just look over at your smaller teammate Kylington, who Sutter certainly didn't seem to like in any way at all the previous season. Kylington worked hard in the off-season, and he came to camp with something to prove - and he proved it to Sutter. Sutter rewarded him with top 4 minutes. That's how you do it.


Valimaki needs to get his head out of his arse and wake up here. Sutter is one of the best coaches he will ever have in his entire life as a defencemen. How many defencemen became great under Darryl? He is the defence-whisperer if there ever was one.


Reading this thread - IF it is true - just makes me believe that Valimaki is just another entitled brat like Baertschi was, and he won't go anywhere in his career until he wakes the hell up. He can only wish he was as good as Stone is at the moment - Stone is better at every facet of the game, including apparently 'being a good teammate'.

[dirk diggler]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

In the final 5 most important games that the Flames played last season the Oiler defense was not trash..

Nurse was a +4 playing against the Flames best offensive team since Nieuwendyk, Roberts, MacInnes, Fleury times (1993-94).

There were no Oiler D-men with a minus series against the Flames.

Was it the solid 2-way play by the Oilers forwards?

Meanwhile on the deepest defense in the league the Flames top-2: Hannifin was -6, Andersson -5. **

Edmonton is a good team that is a very worthy opponent and very much worth beating

** whoever Tanev plays with actually becomes the Flames #1 D pairing.

if you want to cherry pick a short 5 game series as proof that the oilers d is so good, how did they do in the sweep against colorado?

[1qqaaz]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

Really, Valimaki has been liking posts on social media where people are arguing about playing Stone ahead of him? Or about trading him to a new organization? He can buzz off if that's true. Know who that reminds me of? Baertschi. I got roasted for saying it at the time, but Baertschi became a terrible entitled prospect that only gave half an effort occasionally. He was lazy and terrible and couldn't be trusted out there, but Feaster was force-feeding him time on the Flames. The second Feaster got fired, Hartley demoted Baertschi.


I feel sorry for Valimaki - injuries have certainly played a role in his development. However, instead of feeling sorry for himself, he should be waking up and realizing that he has the ability to change his fortunes. FFS, just look over at your smaller teammate Kylington, who Sutter certainly didn't seem to like in any way at all the previous season. Kylington worked hard in the off-season, and he came to camp with something to prove - and he proved it to Sutter. Sutter rewarded him with top 4 minutes. That's how you do it.


Valimaki needs to get his head out of his arse and wake up here. Sutter is one of the best coaches he will ever have in his entire life as a defencemen. How many defencemen became great under Darryl? He is the defence-whisperer if there ever was one.


Reading this thread - IF it is true - just makes me believe that Valimaki is just another entitled brat like Baertschi was, and he won't go anywhere in his career until he wakes the hell up. He can only wish he was as good as Stone is at the moment - Stone is better at every facet of the game, including apparently 'being a good teammate'.

Don't know if I can agree. Baertschi was, to date, the hardest working prospect I've ever seen. He spent an insane amount of time working on his skills/conditioning after the practices.

[BrennyBaller]

Originally Posted by 1qqaaz

Don't know if I can agree. Baertschi was, to date, the hardest working prospect I've ever seen. He spent an insane amount of time working on his skills/conditioning after the practices.

Yeah I'm pretty sure it was Shane O'Brien who said that Hartley border line bullied Baertschi and ruined his confidence.

[Vinny01]

Feaster ruined Sven by grossly overhyping him in the media. Feaster was brutal at overhyping everything related to the Flames from how great Weisbroad was to Jankowski and Baerstchi.

Burke tried to chill the hype out but came across as burying him to many fans

[gvitaly]

I’m really glad our defence is considered as elite and deep as they come. However, I take it with a grain of salt. We had our D proclaimed elite after we got Bouwmeester, with Regher and Phaneuf it looked amazing. Then history repeated itself when we got Hamonic… Brodie Gio, Hamilton, Hamonic, and Stone that seemed as solid as it goes at the time.

The problem with those teams is that it takes all 5 guys on the ice to defend consistently, and we had some players get away from it in the playoffs. Now, I’m a huge believer in Sutter, and the D look great on paper, but most of them also had career years last year. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of our D takes a step back. I also wouldn’t be surprised if it takes Weegar some time adjusting. He showed he can carry a pairing after Ekblad got injured, but I’m not sure how much he played away from Barkov as well. Barkov is one of the players that makes the life of his D very easy.

I still expect a top 10 D despite everything. Its biggest test would be to see if it can limit McDavid, and EDM’s PP. I would be a lot more impressed when we start winning against them with the scores of 2-1 or 3-2 instead of 9-6 or 6-5.

[Vinny01]

Big difference this year is the team is coming off a top 3 finish in goals against. The summer they got Bouwmeester came off a year where they struggled to keep the puck out of their net. The also had a really strong year in goals against in the first year with Bouw but had horrible goals for and that was the season it all went off the rails with Phaneuf and Jokinen being traded for depth scraps to try and bolster the offense.

This current flames team was a top 3 defensive team that still has an elite goalie and swapped a third pair guy for a top pair guy. 3 of the top 4 from last year were still only 25 last year and have room to grow

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

Feaster ruined Sven by grossly overhyping him in the media. Feaster was brutal at overhyping everything related to the Flames from how great Weisbroad was to Jankowski and Baerstchi.

Burke tried to chill the hype out but came across as burying him to many fans

Feaster was terrible at over-hyping players but what ruined Sven was injuries and concussions.
I think he would have been a quality 2nd line forward if not for that.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Feaster was terrible at over-hyping players but what ruined Sven was injuries and concussions.
I think he would have been a quality 2nd line forward if not for that.

That is fair but Feaster hyped him as the heir to Iginla and the next franchise player. Far more than a quality second liner

[calumniate]

When we acquired bouwmeester our d was great on paper but we had no forwards. All our cap was spent on D. It turns out that having good forwards can help with defensive metrics. That was such a tire fire season lol

[Vinny01]

Getting off topic but that Sutter era Flames team could have been so different if they handled that offseason better.

Make the Bouwmeester deal, trade Phaneuf for pure futures, and re-sign Cammy. Could they have acquired the Kessel package for Dion if they moved him at the 09 draft?

[Yrebmi]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Harsh. Yost says the Flames have the 2nd best d in the league but we are all over him for saying the Oilers D are middling... haha

Not really harsh. Are we supposed to ignore a blatant miss judgment only because they said something nice -and not really controversial- about our team?

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

or maybe they are not trash. The Flames had a great historic 82 games season... They won 1 more game than the Oilers.

So it's your actual view that the Oilers blueline is better than the Flames blueline both last year and this year based on total team wins (not points or any other stats) and plus/minus in a 5 game series where Calgary's best dman was either injured or missing and two of the game's elite players went off on inhuman scoring binges?

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

or maybe they are not trash. The Flames had a great historic 82 games season... They won 1 more game than the Oilers.

Once again your weak logic and thin analysis sticks out here the Flames had 44 regulation wins to the Oilers 38. The Oil had far more luck in the shootout and overtime gaining 6 wins in OT and 5 in the shootout to the Flames 4 in OT and 2 in the SO.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Feaster was terrible at over-hyping players but what ruined Sven was injuries and concussions.
I think he would have been a quality 2nd line forward if not for that.

Not for Calgary though. I think he was drummed out by Bob.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Originally Posted by 1qqaaz

Don't know if I can agree. Baertschi was, to date, the hardest working prospect I've ever seen. He spent an insane amount of time working on his skills/conditioning after the practices.

Yep, he fooled a lot of people with his effort on conditioning and after-practice skills.


In actual games, laziest floater that would make James Neal blush. If it wasn't for Charlie Simmer doing colour for as long as he did on Flames' broadcasts, maybe I wouldn't have noticed either, but I mentioned this on the forums back then - how little he moved his feet. Just glide, float, glide glide.. skate.. glide glide glide. Definitely skilled, but completely wasted.


I am not even talking about the concussion issues - he lost every puck battle, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt for being apprehensive about that. He just floated all the fricken time. I noticed it once, and I would start focusing on him for entire shifts at a time, and was astonished at how little work he put into everything. Completely floated almost all the time - unless he had a good scoring chance.



Burke was 100% right for blasting him.



However, yep, he definitely loved working hard on his skills after practice, and riding a bike. Fooled me too, and fooled Button who talked about how he would ride the bike rather than play video games.



Valimaki has a really good shot at making a career for himself here. There is a long list of defencemen who really improved under Sutter, and I hope he takes the path of Regehr, Leopold, etc., than Baertschi.

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by dirk diggler

if you want to cherry pick a short 5 game series as proof that the oilers d is so good, how did they do in the sweep against colorado?

Nutty take putting all this stock into +/- vs a vastly underperforming Flames team over a small sample then paying no mind to the defensive performances in the next series where the opponent actually brought their game and they got trampled.

What a trollish closet oiler fan take that was.

Woodcroft honeymoon bump will undoubtedly peter out this upcoming season too. Smith was covering some warts with his puck clearances too so if he's out on 'LTIR', look for that to end too.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

Nutty take putting all this stock into +/- vs a vastly underperforming Flames team over a small sample then paying no mind to the defensive performances in the next series where the opponent actually brought their game and they got trampled.

What a trollish closet oiler fan take that was.

Woodcroft honeymoon bump will undoubtedly peter out this upcoming season too. Smith was covering some warts with his puck clearances too so if he's out on 'LTIR', look for that to end too.

I mean even in the Flames series, their D wasn't good. Their offence was just on point and the Flames' D was porous itself.

[midniteowl]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

Nutty take putting all this stock into +/- vs a vastly underperforming Flames team over a small sample then paying no mind to the defensive performances in the next series where the opponent actually brought their game and they got trampled.

What a trollish closet oiler fan take that was.

Woodcroft honeymoon bump will undoubtedly peter out this upcoming season too. Smith was covering some warts with his puck clearances too so if he's out on 'LTIR', look for that to end too.

I imagine McDavid will be doing a lot of eyes rolling after the defense coughing up pucks over and over.

[soulchoice]

Originally Posted by 1qqaaz

Don't know if I can agree. Baertschi was, to date, the hardest working prospect I've ever seen. He spent an insane amount of time working on his skills/conditioning after the practices.

Exactly this. The talk about Sven at the time of his draft and subsequent year after the Flames chose him, it was widely known that he would stay after practices and try to hone his skills.

That is why when he was called up to play and scored a few goals, there was initial excitement on the kid (combined with his draft pedigree). It is a shame that he had injuries and also appeared to have become so entitled to a point where he was called out by Burkie.