The Drive for 30th

[Stay Golden]

We have to get in the top 4 picks. After trading Iginla for what we got i want a top 4 pick.
Not saying Feaster did good or bad, lets face it Iginla and Meehan handcuffed the Flames with the PIT only 1 team BS.

[Miniac]

Originally Posted by Stay Golden

We have to get in the top 4 picks. After trading Iginla for what we got i want a top 4 pick.
Not saying Feaster did good or bad, lets face it Iginla and Meehan handcuffed the Flames with the PIT only 1 team BS.

Only way I see the Flames in the top 4 is if we drop all the remaninig games including the tough one vs Nashville.

[Stay Golden]

Originally Posted by Miniac

Only way I see the Flames in the top 4 is if we drop all the remaninig games including the tough one vs Nashville.

absolutely they have to lose out. Play Babchuk for the rest of the year to increase the odds.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

I would not be at all surprised if we see exactly that.

Obviously Kipper goes tonight and the Flames will likely put in a great effort in front of him.

However, once they hit the road, it should get interesting. The Heat's last game is Saturday and a few more of them will join the Flames fold after that.

Look for Cundari, Nemisz, Byron (if he is playing) and Jones to get some action.

And I would not be at all surprised if we see Irving get at least one of the games. And if so, bet on the fact that it will be against Nashville. (and yes, if that does happen, you can bet your last dollar that he will play the game of his life)

But playing rookies eager to be in the NHL isn't a way to throw games. On the contrary, rookies typically play their hearts out in their first 6-8 games in the NHL. So cycling in a bunch of guys from the Heat will make it more likely the Flames win those games.

That's why I give credence to the story about Rutherford tanking the Hurricanes in 2003 by not bringing up any AHL guys. If your goal as a GM is to lose, far better to let complacent veterans play out the string.

[taco.vidal]

The dive is not going well.
Out of the top five here we come!!!

[kirant]

Originally Posted by taco.vidal

The dive is not going well.
Out of the top five here we come!!!

I think for those wanting a dive, the prerequisite ceremonies of sending off Kiprusoff the right way are done.

The last 4 games are tough ones on the road. Sportsclubstats still puts the Flames on the cusp of 5/6th overall on average, to be 6/7th after the Oilers win the lottery.

[dammage79]

The goal is to get into the top seven picks. Anything lower than that and is a gamble IMO.

[Yakbutter]

Very frustrating to see the flames play themselves into a lottery pick, only to turn it on and start winning games that don't need to be won.

What can you do thought? Iginla and Bouw are gone, half the team is made up of rookies, seems like feaster is doing everything he can with the roster to help the draft position.

Put Danny Taylor in net?

[nik-]

We better start looking who's in the 7/8/9 range. I think we're going to miss out on the two second tier centers

[sergei_makarov]

I think the Flames finish somewhere in the 24-28 range, so pick 3rd to 7th overall or as high as 1st or as low as 8th, which is okay.

Jones will go first and Mackinnon will go second, leaving Drouin, Barkov, Nuchushkin, Nurse, Monohan, Lindholm all as options.

If Calgary finishes higher than 24, that's when there should be concern and I don't see that happening with the remaining schedule.

If they really wanna tank? Play all the veterans and as little of these young kids as possible, cuz the kids look good!

[SebC]

It's pretty amazing how bad Tampa's record is for a team with an even goal differential. Every team in the top half of the standings is even or better, while every team in the bottom half is negative, except Tampa. Calgary and Nashville are ahead of them with -29 and -25, respectively.

Expect a bounce-back season from them next year... they're pretty much the opposite of what Florida was last season.

[kyuss275]

Originally Posted by Yakbutter

Very frustrating to see the flames play themselves into a lottery pick, only to turn it on and start winning games that don't need to be won.

What can you do thought? Iginla and Bouw are gone, half the team is made up of rookies, seems like feaster is doing everything he can with the roster to help the draft position.

Put Danny Taylor in net?

Feaster better be taking these young guys out for a steak or 2. They probably saved his job.

[Frequitude]

Updated probabilities of where we'll finish in the standings and where we'll end up drafting.

[nik-]

Please 5 ... pleeeeaaase.

[Psytic]

I have a feeling if Nsh is lower than us they are grabbing Lindholm.

[3 Justin 3]

For the love of god OOT, help us out for a change.

Tampa should get two victories out of their next 4 games, Carolina and Florida which would put them over us (we'd have to go 0-3-1 at best).

Carolina has 5 games left to get 4 points, so that's impossible.

Nashville has to beat us on Tuesday and with a Flames loss to Minnesota on Sunday they'd leapfrog us.

Florida and Colorado have 29th and 30rd locked down.

Philly has Carolina, so either they will shoot up 3 point past us or Carolina will pull within 1. New Jersey has Florida so they should pull away.



I will say, if the Flames do go 0-4 (which I am 99.9% sure we will not, we'll go 2-2 or 3-1), then they is a good chance we will still pick in the top 4. I'd put my money on the Flames picking 5th though, unless a team outside the top 4 or us wins the lottery.

[NBC]

I said a while back that they'll pick 6th. I'm sticking to that.

[VladtheImpaler]

Terrible - we cannot escape the gravitational pull of the Sun (9th place). This franchise is cursed - whether we try to win or lose, we always regress to the mean/mediocrity.

[FlameZilla]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

Terrible - we cannot escape the gravitational pull of the Sun (9th place). This franchise is cursed - whether we try to win or lose, we always regress to the mean/mediocrity.

We should change the OP title to 'Playing Fine for Nine' or something...

[driveway]

Originally Posted by SebC

It's pretty amazing how bad Tampa's record is for a team with an even goal differential. Every team in the top half of the standings is even or better, while every team in the bottom half is negative, except Tampa. Calgary and Nashville are ahead of them with -29 and -25, respectively.

Expect a bounce-back season from them next year... they're pretty much the opposite of what Florida was last season.

Tampa is 5 - 15 in one-goal-games this year which is catastrophically bad. Between 2009-10 and 2010-11 the Oilers went a combined 21 - 41 in one-goal-games. So one of the most spectacularly bad teams ever had a .339 winning percentage in one-goal-games whereas this year's Lightning are at .250.

Considering the draft class they're going to be picking high in, the Lightning sure picked the right year to be astonishingly unlucky.

In fact, I just went back and since the last lockout, the worst single year team was the 06-07 Flyers who finished with 54 points and they went 11 - 21 in one-goal-games, which gives them almost exactly the same winning percentage as the 2009-11 Oilers.

So the Lightning have to be simultaneously the luckiest and unluckiest team possibly ever, to end up with such a poor record in close games and potentially be rewarded with such a good player.

If they even reached the appallingly low standards of the worst teams of the last ten years they'd be 7 - 13 and would be sitting with between 40 and 42 points.

We're 9 - 7 in these games this year, and, let's face it, we're awful. If Tampa performed as well as we did in close games, they'd be 11-9 and battling for a playoff spot.