[Rumour] Chris Johnston: Lindholm is interested in staying

[Hackey]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

One guy has been around a lot longer on a better team in the East. Besides, even if it was reverse you would still bitch about it. You bitch about everything. You hate the roster, you hate the coaches, you hate the trades they make and the ones they don't. You hate the draft picks, you hate the farm team, you hate the history, present, and future of this team. You would probably try to burn the fn arena down if they ever made it to the SC final again.

Calm down. The roster yes is pretty bad. Don't think Ive complained about the coach once. Haven't complained about the picks. The farm team ya isn't great. 30 years of mediocrity ya not a big fan. But ultimately I have issues with the direction of the organization or the lack of a direction. But back to the point of discussion even if we said yes Lindholm is the equivalent of Bergeron (which he's not). Stanley Cup Championship teams usually have a top end center or two. Just because 2 or 3 teams might have not in the last 20 years doesn't make me believe, okay, Lindholm can be that guy, especially when I look at his supporting cast.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

I would suggest anytime you are above 8% of the total cap space you are in star salary territory. With 23 players, the average player should be getting about 4.3% of the cap. If you have 4 players getting a combined 32% of the cap those guys are probably your stars, next 6 probably get about 30% of the cap and they are probably your good guys players and then you have about 9 players getting 23% of the cap and they are probably your average to below average players and then 4 players getting 4% of the cap and they are your league minimum players.

Flames sign Lindholm anywhere near 9 million and they will have 4 players for the life of his contract that get at least 32% of the cap. Those would have to be your stars by any reasonable measure.

If the cap is 92 million in 2025, 8% of the cap is 7.36M. How many players already are over that?

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

Lindholm is worth 8-8.5M. The difference between 7.5 to 8.5 for a star (Hes a star/star light, not a superstar) doesnt matter. No team gets in cap problems because of the extra $500K-1M on a star (Now that 'star' can become garbage, but the extra $1m isnt the issue, its when the star stops producing)

The question is with the existing Flames contracts with term, can we win a cup or at least seriously challenge with or without Lindholm before these players are terrible contract ex stars?

I don't think we even come close to a real contender with this team and Lindholm in the next 2-3 years, and then we will be one of the most expensive and old teams.

Signing Lindholm signals "more of the same" and I think that's the main issue people have.

Now if we're going for more of the same, I guess going "all in" on 'more of the same' makes the most season. Sign Lindy, go get Nylander, and hope you have a goalie go on a magical run and worry about the contracts in 3 years.

But in doing this I think we just see 3 years of meh, followed by a forced long terrible rebuild stuck with aged expensive assets

But if we build through the draft why do we have to be an old team in 3 years?

Clear out Tanev, Backlund, Coleman, Markstrom and replace them through the system you are left with just a few players over 32. Every great team has some key guys over 32. Most teams that win the cup are not top 10 youngest teams in the NHL either.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Redrum

This thread seems to circle back to the argument of Lindholm(by himself) being worth the 8+ right now, which isn't even close to addressing the real problem.

Yeah, and I'm finding that really frustrating.

'Right now' is not the problem. 'Down the road' is the problem.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Redrum

This thread seems to circle back to the argument of Lindholm(by himself) being worth the 8+ right now, which isn't even close to addressing the real problem.

And I wanted to address this again. People are constantly talking about the Cap going up with the players' escrow backlog getting paid up.

But I think that ignores other economic realities. These Gigantic TV deals are proving to be problematic in that they're not as lucrative as they used to be.

We're seeing Sports Reporters getting canned and axed by the bucket-load.

They're not sending TV and Radio broadcasters on the road anymore to shave costs, and the list goes on and on.

If people are banking on TV deals to generate revenue to bump the cap up I think they need to seriously re-evaluate that.

And thats not even taking into consideration the absolute goddamned boat-anchor that is Arizona.

With that arena deal nixed and their future uncertain, they're sucking hard at the profit-sharing pipe, does anyone think thats going to help generate and grow revenues so the cap can keep rising?

There seems to be this absolute faith that the cap is going to keep going up by leaps and bounds, but I dont think that faith is solidly founded.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

If the cap is 92 million in 2025, 8% of the cap is 7.36M. How many players already are over that?

Well for the Flames it would be Lindholm and Huberdeau. Not sure what you are exactly asking, but going to your original question, that would make a guy making north of 8.5 million a star.

My point was that roughly that is how most teams cap breaks down, their top 4 paid players make about 32% of the cap as a floor. One has to assume the hope is that your top 4 paid players are your stars.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

If the cap is 92 million in 2025, 8% of the cap is 7.36M. How many players already are over that?

82 players(including Price and Weber) have a cap hit of more than $7.35M.

[Cleveland Steam Whistle]

Originally Posted by Locke

And I wanted to address this again. People are constantly talking about the Cap going up with the players' escrow backlog getting paid up.

But I think that ignores other economic realities. These Gigantic TV deals are proving to be problematic in that they're not as lucrative as they used to be.

We're seeing Sports Reporters getting canned and axed by the bucket-load.

They're not sending TV and Radio broadcasters on the road anymore to shave costs, and the list goes on and on.

If people are banking on TV deals to generate revenue to bump the cap up I think they need to seriously re-evaluate that.

And thats not even taking into consideration the absolute goddamned boat-anchor that is Arizona.

With that arena deal nixed and their future uncertain, they're sucking hard at the profit-sharing pipe, does anyone think thats going to help generate and grow revenues so the cap can keep rising?

There seems to be this absolute faith that the cap is going to keep going up by leaps and bounds, but I dont think that faith is solidly founded.

I think it's an interesting point, but I don't think broadcast rights are going down in value. The core content of sports, is still being consumed. The content is still in demand, what's changing is how and where people consume the content. That's what's forcing traditional providers to make some of these super impactful cuts right now (along with macro economic factors). But the demand for access to live NHL games (ie. what drives the price of content rights) is still there.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Macho0978

But if we build through the draft why do we have to be an old team in 3 years?

Clear out Tanev, Backlund, Coleman, Markstrom and replace them through the system you are left with just a few players over 32. Every great team has some key guys over 32. Most teams that win the cup are not top 10 youngest teams in the NHL either.

If we build through the draft and end up with good players through the draft we will be stuck signing 2 or 3 year deals for some of them because we have old guys taking up the cap space. It seems pretty obvious that the best approach for the Flames is to sign young players for as long as possible coming out of their ELC. Those contracts worked for almost every single player they signed them to and in general across the league those contracts work. People were criticizing the Thompson contract last summer, now Buffalo look like geniuses.

Using up space and the signing Honzek to a 3 year deal in 2027 because we can’t sign him to a longterm deal would be the worst scenario. Have 7 guys over 30 for all I care as long as they make less than 20% of the cap space. Leave your cap space for guys in their 20’s.

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

No, but he is damn close.

I really like Lindholm but I don't think he's close to Bergeron. You could probably compare them offensively, but Bergeron is the best defensive forward in the history of the NHL. He's generational in the impact he has when he's on the ice.

Lindholm just doesn't have that impact, and I think it would be a mistake to project him to age as gracefully as well.

[CFO]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

I really like Lindholm but I don't think he's close to Bergeron. You could probably compare them offensively, but Bergeron is the best defensive forward in the history of the NHL. He's generational in the impact he has when he's on the ice.

Lindholm just doesn't have that impact, and I think it would be a mistake to project him to age as gracefully as well.

Bergeron is not the best defensive forward ever. Elite yes.

[Ashasx]

At least say who is better if you are going to disagree. Who is better than Bergeron defensively?

I'm on mobile right now, but even now at 36, analytically, nobody was even close this season or last season.

The Selke should absolutely be re-named after him.

[Jiri Hrdina]

If Bergeron isn't the best he's certainly in the top 5.
Off the top of my head Guy Carbonneau, Bob Gainey, Pavel Datsyuk come to mind
Always though Fedorov was under-rated too.
I think he's in that group no?
Oh Jere Lehtinen was damn good to.
I don't know how one breaks it down but Bergeron has to be in the conversation of best all time no?

I feel like this is a conversation on the extremes. If we are comparing Lindholm to Bergeron I don't think he measures up. But that's because that Bergeron bar is damn high.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by CFO

Bergeron is not the best defensive forward ever. Elite yes.

Uhh yes he is. 100% he is. Who was ever better?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

At least say who is better if you are going to disagree. Who is better than Bergeron defensively?

I'm on mobile right now, but even now at 36, analytically, nobody was even close this season or last season.

The Selke should absolutely be re-named after him.

Its possible though, maybe one could make a case for Datsyuk?

[Ashasx]

I think the point of my post has been missed. Whether Bergeron is the best defensive forward ever, 2nd, 3rd, whatever (a fun discussion)... Lindholm is not there. He is not close.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

Well for the Flames it would be Lindholm and Huberdeau. Not sure what you are exactly asking, but going to your original question, that would make a guy making north of 8.5 million a star.

My point was that roughly that is how most teams cap breaks down, their top 4 paid players make about 32% of the cap as a floor. One has to assume the hope is that your top 4 paid players are your stars.

My point is that in 2025, a hell of a lot of players are going to be paid “like stars”. Because today that’s $6.68M. Anders Lee money.

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

If we build through the draft and end up with good players through the draft we will be stuck signing 2 or 3 year deals for some of them because we have old guys taking up the cap space. It seems pretty obvious that the best approach for the Flames is to sign young players for as long as possible coming out of their ELC. Those contracts worked for almost every single player they signed them to and in general across the league those contracts work. People were criticizing the Thompson contract last summer, now Buffalo look like geniuses.

Using up space and the signing Honzek to a 3 year deal in 2027 because we can’t sign him to a longterm deal would be the worst scenario. Have 7 guys over 30 for all I care as long as they make less than 20% of the cap space. Leave your cap space for guys in their 20’s.

If Honzek needs a big deal in 2027, how did he play on his ELC? If we hit on some young guys a lot can happen in 4 years.

This team minus Toffoli and Hanifin might not look as good on paper right now but it isn't that bad either if Markstrom and Huberdeau play much better than they did last year. This team will have some young players to watch this year and if we have some good rookies this team can be good.

I'd love to rebuild but it looks like that isn't an option. If you are Conroy and it isn't, what do you do. Act like CP posters and go into Murray's office and tell him every day we need to rebuild, and he says over and over again it's not an option. Need to go to plan B. Way too many posters on here won't even acknowledge any sort of plan B. It's one way only.

[Monahammer]

Datsyuk and Lehtenen are the only ones close to Bergeron IMO. Maybe Brind'Amour.

Edit: I will specify that I have actually watched these players. Carbonneau might have been good but i've never watched him play! Federov is another good call and one I omitted.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

If Bergeron isn't the best he's certainly in the top 5.
Off the top of my head Guy Carbonneau, Bob Gainey, Pavel Datsyuk come to mind
Always though Fedorov was under-rated too.
I think he's in that group no?
Oh Jere Lehtinen was damn good to.
I don't know how one breaks it down but Bergeron has to be in the conversation of best all time no?

I feel like this is a conversation on the extremes. If we are comparing Lindholm to Bergeron I don't think he measures up. But that's because that Bergeron bar is damn high.

this is hard once we go back too far- there is little doubt Bob Gainey had excellent reputation and his team had excellent results, but we just don't have the advanced stats to compare to guys now . there were other solid players in that era- his direct peer LW Craig Ramsay also comes to mind. interesting that alot of the guys with big defensive reputations in the 70s (Don Marcotte was another one) were wingers, the 'shut down winger' but I think probably the most preferred elite defensive Fs are going to be Cs.



I wonder how someone like Bobby Clarke would end up faring if we could apply modern metrics to them