Butler - You Knew This Was Coming

[CsInMyBlood]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

The coaches see the ice better than all of us and if he was as much a liability as you say he is he would never suit up. Honestly the coaches know what's going on better than we do. Once Breen is healthy I don't have an issue with him taking Butler or SOB's spot for a time to see what he can do but Smith is just awful and if he was part of the solution he wouldn't have been a healthy scratch for the beginning of the season.

Just like Brodie was a healthy scratch at the beginning of last season?

We all know how that turned out.

[Psytic]

hehe there is always a whipping boy. Zuyzin, Ericsson, Bouwmeester, Phaneuf when was the last time we were truly happy with the back end? For the record I think Butler sucks to.

[puckluck2]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

The coaches see the ice better than all of us and if he was as much a liability as you say he is he would never suit up. Honestly the coaches know what's going on better than we do. Once Breen is healthy I don't have an issue with him taking Butler or SOB's spot for a time to see what he can do but Smith is just awful and if he was part of the solution he wouldn't have been a healthy scratch for the beginning of the season.

Do you not remember how Butler was a regular healthy scratch last season? Funny how you give credit to Hartley for seeing the ice and scratching Smith but call Smith worse than Butler.

so you can call Smith awful all you want but when he's in the lineup on Saturday and Butler is scratched we can finally agree that Butler is terrible as well since it's almost a guarantee he won't be playing Saturday.

Do you still believe we all hate Butler because we are blinded by Regehr love? I haven't seen you bring up that defence in quite some time. He is awful and I can't imagine Smith will be any worse and if he is then both Butler and Smith can enjoy the AHL. Bring up a young buck like Breen and let him try to develop.

[red sky]

What's with playing the 3rd pairing with the Rookie+Hudler line? I don't understand that but during the first half of the game I found when the Flames where hemmed in, it was because that forward line was on the ice with the terrible 3rd pairing.

Plus, I know this is dumb and all, but I just don't like Butler's face.

[Bertuzzied]

Originally Posted by Huntingwhale

Whats wrong with Rhett Warriner?

[Gord_Wappel]

I am probably one of the biggest Butler haters around and while i agree that he should be scratched i have read several suggest to maybe get Cundari in the lineup.
Cundari to me is a career AHL'er and while he has decent offensive instincts he is small and a liability on the backend. I think alot of people remember his beautiful snipe in his first game that has made him into a shiny object to some but from what i remember he also had several defensive lapses, bad pinches and is currently struggling even with the Heat.

I would rather see Breen, Smith, Ramage, Seiloff, or Wotherspoon.

[thymebalm]

Originally Posted by Gord_Wappel

I am probably one of the biggest Butler haters around and while i agree that he should be scratched i have read several suggest to maybe get Cundari in the lineup.
Cundari to me is a career AHL'er and while he has decent offensive instincts he is small and a liability on the backend. I think alot of people remember his beautiful snipe in his first game that has made him into a shiny object to some but from what i remember he also had several defensive lapses, bad pinches and is currently struggling even with the Heat.

I would rather see Breen, Smith, Ramage, Seiloff, or Wotherspoon.

That's the pipeline. I would put it - Smith, Breen, Ramage, Wotherspoon, Seiloff. But I don't expect that you'll see either of the kids that just came out of junior. I don't believe Breen has NHL skill, but he took big AHL strides forward last season.

I think Ramage is the guy we should bring up to have in the rotation.

[DOOM]

Just making sure that everyone knows Smith is 29 and is nothing more then a 7-8 d-man..

[theinfinitejar]

Originally Posted by Tyler

Get Rid of Butler:

http://flamesnation.ca/2013/10/17/ge...f-chris-butler

You're welcome Kent!

That's pretty damning stuff. The guy is playing the easiest competition on the team and he's still getting absolutely blasted out there.

If you read that and still think we don't have anyone better than Butler to plug in back there I don't know what could convince you.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by theinfinitejar

That's pretty damning stuff. The guy is playing the easiest competition on the team and he's still getting absolutely blasted out there.

If you read that and still think we don't have anyone better than Butler to plug in back there I don't know what could convince you.

I don't know if many recall, and I know it was just one game, however Chris Butler is tied for the modern day +/- record at -7 vs Boston. 9 Bruins players had 3 or more points in that game. Remember, Butler used to play on the top pairing with Bouwmeester. I still can't believe Sutter wouldn't try something else. Hartley needs to scratch him, or he'll fall victim to the same fate.

Doug Wilson shares the record when the Flames beat up on the Sharks 13-1 in 1993.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/boxs...302100CGY.html

http://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/en/boxscore?id=2011020584

[Anduril]

Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle

What exactly should Feaster do about this at this point? Isn't it now on Hartley to decide if he should be in the line up or not?

Butler isn't going to get you anything you want in a trade, and we have no needs at this moment to get rid of him, so what exactly are you hoping Feaster could do about it?

Take him out of the equation ideally since Hartley has some mysterious reason for keeping him on the ice.

Even better, add another top 4 D if an opportunity arises. Russell has been a solid addition but keeping him as a #5 guy would be perfect along with a youngster as you rotate SOB into the lineup when needed.

[killer_carlson]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

I don't know if many recall, and I know it was just one game, however Chris Butler is tied for the modern day +/- record at -7 vs Boston. 9 Bruins players had 3 or more points in that game. Remember, Butler used to play on the top pairing with Bouwmeester. I still can't believe Sutter wouldn't try something else. Hartley needs to scratch him, or he'll fall victim to the same fate.

Doug Wilson shares the record when the Flames beat up on the Sharks 13-1 in 1993.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/boxs...302100CGY.html

http://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/en/boxscore?id=2011020584

You also forget that Butler was also on the ice or a washington powerplay goal as well. That doesnt count for the plus minus stat, but it does say he was on the ice for 8 goals against that game.

[timbit]

In good company with Doug Wilson?

[Itse]

Originally Posted by red sky

What's with playing the 3rd pairing with the Rookie+Hudler line? I don't understand that but during the first half of the game I found when the Flames where hemmed in, it was because that forward line was on the ice with the terrible 3rd pairing.

Haven't noticed it being done consistently, but that line is pretty soft, but maybe Hartley wants O'Brien on the ice if there's a need to protect those guys

[Where ru Chris O'Sullivan]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

I don't know if many recall, and I know it was just one game, however Chris Butler is tied for the modern day +/- record at -7 vs Boston. 9 Bruins players had 3 or more points in that game. Remember, Butler used to play on the top pairing with Bouwmeester. I still can't believe Sutter wouldn't try something else. Hartley needs to scratch him, or he'll fall victim to the same fate.

Doug Wilson shares the record when the Flames beat up on the Sharks 13-1 in 1993.

http://www.hockey-reference.com/boxs...302100CGY.html

http://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/en/boxscore?id=2011020584

Ron Stern...3 Goals???!??!!??!?!?!? wow!

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by DOOM

Just making sure that everyone knows Smith is 29 and is nothing more then a 7-8 d-man..

And yet he had a very good camp.

[Tinordi]

Somewhere Shane O'Brien is smiling

[FlameZilla]

Butler must have some dirt on Feaster. I can't believe he's still in the line-up after the abominably terrible defensive play he's exhibited since, well, forever.

It's addition by subtraction at this point. Pairing him with S.O.B. is classic as well; that guy might be the only person worse at hockey than Butler.

[van fan down by river]

Originally Posted by Bertuzzied

Whats wrong with Rhett Warriner?

I was just thinking that.. Could he be any worse then Butler.

[FlamesAllTheWay]

Originally Posted by Wolven

Thing is, that is pretty much everyone's argument for taking Butler out of the lineup. With the rebuild underway and the added attention that our prospect depth is getting, most people feel that someone better is already in the system and Butler is in the way. Whether this better player is Breen, Cundari, Sieloff, Wotherspoon or Ramage doesn't really matter because the spot is currently being occupied by someone who is not impressing or developing.

I get that and like I said, if someone better comes along and takes Butlers spot then great. I'll leave it to the coaches to decide though. Regardless of if the teams no longer in win-now mode I think the approach should still be to ice the most competitive team (obviously with the focus more on utilizing our own prospects/players to accomplish this) and trying to win every game. As opposed to just making the rebuild one big tryout. Not saying you were implying this either.

You said most people "feel" there's someone better in the system but this isn't really based off of anything other than emotion. Butler sucks so lets throw in the next guy, and that's pretty much it. That's what I'm seeing a lot of anyways (except for the post I quoted below...)

If Butler is such a huge liability and/or if we truly had someone in the system ready to take his spot right now it probably would have happened already. Our D prospects probably need some more time in Abbotsford though and it's a long season, so I'm sure we'll be seeing some of them at some point one way or another.

Originally Posted by theinfinitejar

That's pretty damning stuff. The guy is playing the easiest competition on the team and he's still getting absolutely blasted out there.

Admittedly I don't know much about Corsi stats other than people were ready to chuck them out the window in the Ryan Lambert - Monahan thread. But those numbers don't look good. Again, he's had some rough patches to start the year for sure so I'm not entirely surprised.

Honest question though, do the TOI figures include PP and PK time? Butlers the only D man on our team who skates a regular shift on the PK but not on the PP. Given the increased likelihood of shots for when you're on the PP and shots against when you're on the PK (and the decreased likelihood of shots against when on PP and shots for when on PK), these Corsi figures might have a bit of a bias against someone in Butler's role. Whereas they might favour someone like Russell who plays PP but not PK.

Anyways, just something that jumped out at me.