Unpopular Opinions about Flames

[SportsJunky]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

I’ll go further. Cassie Campbell-Pascal is a better color commentator than Kelly Hrudey.

I like Kelly (and Cassie) but that's a pretty low bar.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by jayswin

Yeah, I don't want a late twenties Gaudreau contract to be honest. It'll likely be in the $12-14mil range by that time (possibly more if the cap goes up enough), and he'll want to max out the years as players know it's much harder to get a big contract in your thirties now.

Gaudreau's amazing value right now, but he's getting paid his worth next. Let another team do that and get high value assets back instead.

This was why I wanted an 8 year deal so badly when we signed Gaudreau. Only having him for six was a huge misstep, and the cap savings (~1.25M) seem downright irrelevant.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by jayswin

Plus, Brad just painted himself into a corner with the cap and had to bring Tkachuk down to 3 years to afford him, so now we'll be adding a $10-$13mil Tkachuk contract to the books in 3 years, that's if he doesn't simply take the one year arbitration award and go UFA (which I think is the obvious plan).

Hmm, I was told he didn't paint himself into a corner.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

This was why I wanted an 8 year deal so badly when we signed Gaudreau. Only having him for six was a huge misstep, and the cap savings (~1.25M) seem downright irrelevant.

Your assumption is that 8 years was available (at $8M per or otherwise).

The way he's playing now I'm not sure 6 years wasn't the better decision.

[soulchoice]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Your assumption is that 8 years was available (at $8M per or otherwise).

The way he's playing now I'm not sure 6 years wasn't the better decision.

I would not be surprised if Johnny wanted 6 years max so to test the UFA market earlier, in addition to have a chance to go play out east sooner.

[Corral]

The anchor on this roster is spending $15million + on the bottom 6, assuming you place Backlund as the 3C where he belongs. Hard to see any championships with that structure.

[saXon]

Lucic deserved his suspension.

[TheRealPepman]

Rittich has been playing lots of games and it's no good. This is Kipper all over again. This franchise has never learned. Matter of fact, Talbot should have started against LA (home game), Detroit, and New Jersey.

[ForeverFlameFan]

Originally Posted by TheRealPepman

Rittich has been playing lots of games and it's no good. This is Kipper all over again. This franchise has never learned. Matter of fact, Talbot should have started against LA (home game), Detroit, and New Jersey.

Pretty sure Peters played Talbot when he won his game. I think Talbot is given games to play when he wins them. I think Peters has done fine thus far with the goaltending situation, but I do agree that Talbot could play a few more games. than what he is currently doing.

[TheRealPepman]

Originally Posted by ForeverFlameFan

Pretty sure Peters played Talbot when he won his game. I think Talbot is given games to play when he wins them. I think Peters has done fine thus far with the goaltending situation, but I do agree that Talbot could play a few more games. than what he is currently doing.

To be clear, Talbot should have played against LA at home/DET/NJ aside from the games he actually played. Balance.

[powderjunkie]

Currently looking like it will be 16-4 at the quarter pole, which translates to ~64-16 (It makes sense to plan to the ~80 game mark because you just do whatever makes sense for those last 2). This is particularly concerning because the Flames have played 2 more games than every other team in the league so far, ergo they've probably already played their most dense stretch, where it should be the easiest to talk yourself into starting the backup.

57 is the magic number. Only 2 teams have won the cup in the cap era exceeding that number for their starter - Quick (68 in ’13), Fleury (61 in ’09).

To get there, each quarter needs to be 13-7 going forward. If this team can't generate points with Talbot in net in the reg season, it's a sure sign they can't contend in the playoffs. So be it.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Currently looking like it will be 16-4 at the quarter pole, which translates to ~64-16 (It makes sense to plan to the ~80 game mark because you just do whatever makes sense for those last 2). This is particularly concerning because the Flames have played 2 more games than every other team in the league so far, ergo they've probably already played their most dense stretch, where it should be the easiest to talk yourself into starting the backup.

57 is the magic number. Only 2 teams have won the cup in the cap era exceeding that number for their starter - Quick (68 in ’13), Fleury (61 in ’09).

To get there, each quarter needs to be 13-7 going forward. If this team can't generate points with Talbot in net in the reg season, it's a sure sign they can't contend in the playoffs. So be it.

No offences but that attempted stat is something I consider to be of little to zero use.

One (1) starting goalie wins the Stanley cup pretty much every year, and most eligible goalies don’t even hit that high threshold of games played.

So many other things have to happen to win a cup that don’t have a thing to do with goaltending.

You likely can’t even correlate games played to even making the playoffs in a meaningful way.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

No offences but that attempted stat is something I consider to be of little to zero use.

One (1) starting goalie wins the Stanley cup pretty much every year, and most eligible goalies don’t even hit that high threshold of games played.

So many other things have to happen to win a cup that don’t have a thing to do with goaltending.

You likely can’t even correlate games played to even making the playoffs in a meaningful way.

Yeah, because it is not especially meaningful. But you sure as hell can correlate games played to goalie success by the time teams are playing in the Conference Finals. If a team has designs on playing hockey in May I can guarantee that they are also very wary about the number of games their starter is playing in February and March.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

No offences but that attempted stat is something I consider to be of little to zero use.

One (1) starting goalie wins the Stanley cup pretty much every year, and most eligible goalies don’t even hit that high threshold of games played.

So many other things have to happen to win a cup that don’t have a thing to do with goaltending.

You likely can’t even correlate games played to even making the playoffs in a meaningful way.

To each their own. For me, the most relevant stat is which team manages to cobble together 16 playoff wins in a year. If 13 or 14 of the last 15 have something in common, it's pretty reasonable to be interested. This year's Flames are trending to follow the path of the one or two exceptions.

Cap era: 107 teams had goalies start >61 reg season games; 1 cup winner, 2 finalists. 163 >57gs; 2 cup winners, ~6 finalists.


Looking at 'elite workhorse ' goalies, their best playoff success almost always comes in years they start relatively fewer games:

- Lundqvist best three playoff years came when he started 62, 62, and 46. Never made it past the 2nd round the six times he started more than 62.
- Luongo 60 in '11 (finals)
- in '12 Brodeur started only 59 that year (he was 39 yo...) - of course he also won 2 cups starting over 70 games.
- other than the first cup year, Quick never advanced past the first round in the five other instances he started >60
- Holtby played 54 the year they won the cup. 4 times he played 59+ and never made it past 2nd round.
- Rinne made the finals after playing 61. 4 times he played more and never made it past 2nd round.
- Kipper played 38 in the cup run year. Never made it out of the first round again over seven years of 70+

[Kovaz]

I think it's quite rare to see the starter-backup distribution be perfectly consistent throughout the season. More often than not, you'll see one guy or the other get the lion's share of starts at different points in the year. Elliott and Johnson ended up at a pretty ideal 45-36 split in starts, but that included Johnson getting almost every start from mid-November to the end of December and Elliott playing almost every game from mid-February on.

Talbot will get a chance to start a chunk in a row at some point, and as long as he doesn't pull an Eddie Lack it'll all balance out.

[Strange Brew]

Was looking through ESPN.com today and on their power rankings they talk about Rittich curbing his coca-cola consumption. First I’d heard of that but maybe contributed to his injury/falloff last year if due to fitness.

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/...ons-vs-reality

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Johnny+ for Couturier?

Uhh no. More like Couturier+ for Gaudreau.

You’re aware Gaudreau had 99 pts last year right? If you asked 10 people who they would rather have, 10 people are telling you Gaudreau. It’s not debatable so please don’t bother.

I am obviously not one of those 10 people.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

To each their own. For me, the most relevant stat is which team manages to cobble together 16 playoff wins in a year. If 13 or 14 of the last 15 have something in common, it's pretty reasonable to be interested. This year's Flames are trending to follow the path of the one or two exceptions.

Cap era: 107 teams had goalies start >61 reg season games; 1 cup winner, 2 finalists. 163 >57gs; 2 cup winners, ~6 finalists.


Looking at 'elite workhorse ' goalies, their best playoff success almost always comes in years they start relatively fewer games:

- Lundqvist best three playoff years came when he started 62, 62, and 46. Never made it past the 2nd round the six times he started more than 62.
- Luongo 60 in '11 (finals)
- in '12 Brodeur started only 59 that year (he was 39 yo...) - of course he also won 2 cups starting over 70 games.
- other than the first cup year, Quick never advanced past the first round in the five other instances he started >60
- Holtby played 54 the year they won the cup. 4 times he played 59+ and never made it past 2nd round.
- Rinne made the finals after playing 61. 4 times he played more and never made it past 2nd round.
- Kipper played 38 in the cup run year. Never made it out of the first round again over seven years of 70+

Yeah, yeah.

50 percent of the goalies are out in the first round. No matter how many games they play. Put two 50 game goalies head to head, one is going home. 75 percent by the second. 87.5 percent are out before they even make the final. Only one goalie wins in a given year. So many other factors beyond workload.

Games aside, 93.75 percent of goaltenders entering the playoffs don’t win. No matter how many games they have played that year!

Heck, Kipper’s workload was really the problem Keenan’s last year? That’s, well, just ****ing silly. I’m not going to remind you the physical condition of that team. You can look that up yourself.

You are looking for something that isn’t there

[powderjunkie]

You're just assuming I'm directly attributing regular season workload to that goaltender's performance in the playoffs being the primary reason for a team's elimination. That is not actually my argument (though to be fair I didn't really spell this out).

The vast majority of teams that needs their starter to play 65+ games have significant flaw(s) that will be exposed in 7 game series. It's rarely as simple as 'the backup isn't very good'. Heavy workload is a symptom of a bigger problem, not the root cause.

The prevailing question in this thread seems to be whether this core is good enough to compete in May/June. If the answer is "yes, as long as Rittich plays well for 65+ games", then the answer is actually no. The fact that Peters has only managed to give Talbot the crease 4 times over a comparatively dense 19 game stretch is not a good sign...

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

The prevailing question in this thread seems to be whether this core is good enough to compete in May/June. If the answer is "yes, as long as Rittich plays well for 65+ games", then the answer is actually no. The fact that Peters has only managed to give Talbot the crease 4 times over a comparatively dense 19 game stretch is not a good sign...

I think when most teams have to overplay their starting goalie it’s more because their other goalie isn’t good.

Talbot just isn’t very good. He was a flash in the pan but has been terrible for a few years now.