Can the Flames win a cup with Johnny Hockey as the man ?

[Moneyhands23]

Unfortunately i think monahan is the problem.

[Reign of Fire]

Originally Posted by Slava

Monahan is injured, and I feel bad for the guy. I don’t know why teams hide that and let the fans pile on in these situations. Last year everyone derided the poor guy for 6-8 weeks and he needed three surgeries. Why do that? Why wouldn’t the team just come out say “he’s injured but he’s still the best we’ve got” and save him the scrutiny?

And before someone argues that you can’t disclose injuries because the other teams will target them...they already know. Players talk, teams scout each other heavily and the other team knows when a guy is banged up. Teams aren’t saying anything and it’s a facade. I’m not suggesting they disclose the exact injuries or anything, but just cut these guys a break so they don’t have to hear about how terrible they are in these situations.

If true, he's always injured this time of the year, maybe that's also the problem.

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[Kybb79]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Someone please unban Love. Banning him for passionately preaching the truth is pathetic.

Am i rite?

[kukkudo]

Flames are going to have a 2011 Flyers off-season. One of the big boys will be moved I think.

[Wolfman]

Originally Posted by カナダ人です

What would it take to get Mackinnon out of Colorado?

Neal + 2nd ?

Your left nut

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Reign of Fire

If true, he's always injured this time of the year, maybe that's also the problem.

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Lol, I don't think there's much you can do about that. It's bad luck, if anything.

[Classic_Sniper]

Johnny Gaudreau is having a terrible playoffs right now, there's no doubt about that. But he also had a good one in 2015 in my opinion, so he at least has shown the ability to help his team win in the post season.

Personally, I think it's 4 things right now:


1) Avalanche are one of the fastest teams in the league and are closing in on Gaudreau faster than usual and he has no time or space to find his teammates or to make a play.

2) Mackinnon is making Gaudreau look terrible in comparison because the Flames are allowing him to dominate right now, if Mackinnon was being checked tightly as well, the heat on him would be a lot less.

3) In my opinion, Gaudreau needs a better center who's more puck dominant and a better distributor. You watch centers like Scheiefle or Mackinnon or Barkov and etc, these guys can carry the puck up the ice themselves and distribute to either side of the wing. Constantly deferring to your winger and expecting him to create all the magic is unrealistic. Like what's Gaudreau suppose to do everytime, thread a perfect pass through 5 sticks across the other side of the ice to Lindholm?

4) At the end of the day, the most important thing of all is that you still need to make it to the dance in order to have a shot at the Cup and Johnny Gaudreau helps you win the most games in order to do so. Just look at the last few years, when Gaudreau is hot, he carries this team through their best winning stretches of the season. Just look at the team's record through his best stretch from mid-November to mid-January, team went 22-5-4 in that time, just 1 point behind Tampa in that time. He does hold a very valuable place on the team, he's just not a #1 overall pick and needs more support in my opinion.

[Flames_F.T.W]

Like others have said, we need a dynamic center who can gain the zone and drive play. Johnny is the closest thing to a gamebreaker we have and his style of play is easy to shut down in tight checking playoff hockey. He simply can't do it on his own.

I think Gaudreau is similar to Kessel in that he's an elite complimentary piece and needs someone else to be "the guy", especially come playoffs

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by kukkudo

Flames are going to have a 2011 Flyers off-season. One of the big boys will be moved I think.

I could see this, but how well has that worked for Philly the last 7 seasons

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Slava

Monahan is injured, and I feel bad for the guy.

If he's so badly injured that he can barely skate, shoot, or back-check, then he shouldn't be playing. Dube would be more effective out there.

[Geeoff]

Originally Posted by kukkudo

Flames are going to have a 2011 Flyers off-season. One of the big boys will be moved I think.

Ultimately, those moves worked out poorly for the Flyers. Richards and Carter ended up winning the cup with the Kings and the Flyers have been mostly kinda bad. The GM who made those moves got fired.

[bigrangy]

Yes, but the second and third best men have to be elite impact players as well.

[442scotty]

I think Monahan can skate fast when he wants to because I’ve seen it. I also think that playing with Johnny slows him down because of Gaudreau’s style of play. Gaudreau spends a lot of time weaving all over instead of going north/south and I think this slows his line mates down. Does anyone else think this? While Monahan will never be compared to McD and MacK I think he would be better off with a different winger than Johnny. So to answer the question this thread asks... The Flames won’t win the cup with Gaudreau being the main piece. Gaudreau can be part of the equation but the team needs “The guy” whoever that might be. And Chucky is too slow to be the guy.

[GullFoss]

I think they have to do something. Not only are they not doing anything offensively, the first line is a giant boat anchor dragging down the entire team. And they're not even matched up against difficult opponents, so no excuses. It's absolutely atrocious and it's not just one game - it's the entire series. The buck stops with two players: Johnny and monahan. If it wasn't for Mike smith the last two games would have been complete blow outs.

The most concerning thing about it all is that Colorado's second line is probably the worst in the playoffs. So if our first line is terrible when matched up against the worst second line, imaging how bad this would be if Calgary was up against Vegas or Winnipeg or St Louis or Toronto or Boston or Washington.

Peters should have broken up that line before game 4. Literally the entire city was calling to bench the line in Game 3. Get Johnny on a line with some muscle. Move lindholm to center. Move Janko to the press box. Move Neal to the fourth line.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

Literally the entire city was calling to bench the line in Game 3.

If the coach starts listening to the people in the stands, he'll soon become one of them.

Benching Johnny, Monny and Lindholm would not have won the Flames any games.

[ricardodw]

The team has no critical mass as far as size goes. Every other playoff team has 3 D-men that are of a size that they would stick out on the Flames.

Johnson/Cole/Zadorov are all bigger and meaner than anyone the Flames are playing.

Monahan/Backlund would be the least aggressive 1/2C combination in the playoffs. Jankowski is not ready to move into the #2 slot to play against Mackinnon.

Put Gaudreau on almost any other playoff team and his effectiveness would go up exponentially.

Flames dressing 3 talented smurfs: Gaudreau, Ryan, Mangipane really leaves a problem in playing playoff style defense.

a Team that ranks 31st in league in hits really requires a lot of players stepping out of their comfort zone to play in the playoffs.

[Harry Lime]

Ryan and Mangiapane have been good, and size is not an issue for them. When is the last time you saw either of them fall down on the ice?

Peters is famous for putting lines in a blender, but is being unnecessarily stubborn in these playoffs.

Gaudreau - Lindholm - Tkachuk
Bennett - Backlund - Frolik
Dube - Monahan - (Neal or Quine)
Don't touch the fourth line

... and we might see some effective play.

But it won't happen. I predict no changes to the lineup for the next game.

[Moneyhands23]

Really hope we can add a guy like taylor hall to play on the top line...

Not likely tho as nj is rounding the corner and will want to keep him

[AltaGuy]

Monahan has been absolute ass for months now. Gaudreau looked 1000x better with Ryan as his center during that one game, because Ryan actually possesses the puck once in awhile. If Ryan is an upgrade, Monahan is nowhere near the standard needed for a first line.

Wonder what would’ve happened if we got Hayes at the deadline to play with him.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Geeoff

Ultimately, those moves worked out poorly for the Flyers. Richards and Carter ended up winning the cup with the Kings and the Flyers have been mostly kinda bad. The GM who made those moves got fired.

They likely wouldn't have worked out if the kept them also.

Richards was a known (to the Flyers) "party animal" and Carter was following his lead.

The choice to move them was likely sound. They received excellent value in those trades, value which still works exceptionally well today.

The Kings won 2 Cups, but they also had Kopitar, Doughty and Quick to lead them.