Free agent period: successful or not?

[Strange Brew]

The great: Signing Markstrom is a win. Can’t think of snorers available goalie I would have preferred.

The ok: Tanev will be a nice addition but Flames overpaid in term and $. Little to no doubt that this is a player we’ll be looking at in 2 years and wondering how he can be traded to free up needed cap space. Like pretty much every other 30+ UFA signing this club has made in last few years.

The bad:There seemed to be lots of value in IFA’s this year and Flames to this point, unable to take advantage. This team needs more players who are capable of our performing their contracts.

So I guess about a B. An A and a C signing, but the A is a bigger deal. Maybe end up a B minus if Flames don’t figure out a way to add some value.

[SeanCharles]

I think Tanev will turn out like Engelland.

We will all fall in love with the little things this guy brings.

As someone who hated the Neal, Brouwer and Raymond signings (and Engelland as well to be fair) the moment they were signed, I actually like the Tanev signing.

I think FA was a big success, we got the top goalie and arguably one the the top 5 dmen and one who fits our needs better than anyone who was available, outside of Pietrangelo who was too expensive to fit in.

[Brad Marsh]

I think a agree with those that would grade the off-season as a B. Plus its not over yet so still an opportunity for that grade to increase.

The Markstrom signing was really great for sure. Like Tanev but don't love the term or value of the contract. Pretty happy with the Mangiapane contract. And I like that there appears to be more opportunity for younger players to step up, especially on defense and probably on the 4th line.

Here's my biggest concern: coming into the off-season I would have ranked goaltending as my area of lowest concern, then bottom-six, then defence, and my area of greatest concern was top 6. It was the top 6 (and in particular our top 3) that I thought could use a shakeup or upgrade the most, and that such a shakeup or upgrade would have the biggest impact on team success. Unfortunately the team hasn't been able to addres that at all.

Edit: agree with those who liked the draft. That adds to the overall success. Also agree with those who lament the fact that the Flames have missed out (mostly because of cap issues) on some of the mid-tier value signings. Given that the Flames had more cap space than many teams heading into free agency, that feels like a bit of a disappointment.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by flambers

As others mentioned, signing a top goalie is a really good move.

Tanev contract is risky, however they required a top 4 right handed dman. This addresses that requirement.

However, the forward group is a work in progress. At this point its the weakness of the team.

At least Brad has learned to not attempt to address the forward depth via big name UFA.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by 1qqaaz

The Flames had over 100 points worth in players walk away. And they had about 20 points worth (Tanev) come in.
.

Just on this point, this is a misleading way of looking at it.
The reason why the Flames have some many points "walking away" is just a function of having many players walk. Are you seriously concerned about losing Jankowski (7 points), Hamonic (12 points), Reider (10 points), Stone (7 points), Czarnik (3 point), Gus (3 points, unless you are including his season total which maybe you are, as that would be 29 points), etc.

I would strongly argue that Brodie is the only player of any matter that they allowed to walk away. One could argue Hamonic, I guess.

Most of those points will be replaced by others simply playing in those spots instead. Most of the guys were simply not productive. The 100 point calc is just a function of player quantity and doesn't represent true loss or delta betweens players lost and players acquired.

But which of those guys are you ACTUALLY worried about losing?

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by 1qqaaz

The draft was great, and I would give it an A (I liked every pick except Jake Boltmann). But I think free agency was a disaster, and I would give it an F.

This year's free agency had only 4 contracts that were 4+ years long and were given to players over 30. 2 of them were by the Flames. Defensive defensemen almost never age well. Especially when the player has already regressed for 3 years.
Markstrom has a career 91% and had one pretty good season. He got 36 million dollars for an above-average 43 game stretch. Gaudreau is up soon. Tkachuk will need to be qualified at 9+ mill. All while the cap is still flat. With Giordano aging, the Flames pretty much have no offensive defensemen.

However, the main reason I think free agency was a failure is the loss in other opportunities.
Hall signed a reasonable 1 year deal. Barrie signed cheap. Brodie went for a reasonable price. Toffoli too. Hoffman and Dadonov as well (probably). Flames could have had good value on Haula, Grandlund, and others.

Also, Binnington, Anderssen and Grubaur might be UFAs next year. The 2022 free agency might be the strongest ever.

The Flames had over 100 points worth in players walk away. And they had about 20 points worth (Tanev) come in.

I think the Flames will make the playoffs this year. They might even have home ice in the playoffs. Tanev might be good for a year. Markstrom might be good for a few years.
But I'm not looking forward to having two more old guys on the roster in 3-6 years. I hope I'm wrong, but I am 95% sure I won't be. I've been right about almost every free agent signing since 2005 - I argued with many of you about the Brouwer and Neal signings. If I were a GM, I would never, under any circumstances, give long deals to players over 30.

So much wrong with this post but will address the bolded.

No...he will not need to be qualified at "9+ Mil", he will be qualified at his current salary of 7 M and only if an extension hasn't been agreed to at that point....which is 2 full seasons away.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by transplant99

So much wrong with this post but will address the bolded.

No...he will not need to be qualified at "9+ Mil", he will be qualified at his current salary of 7 M and only if an extension hasn't been agreed to at that point....which is 2 full seasons away.

Thanks for keeping it short since you are wrong

7 m is the cap hit

Tkachuk makes 9 m in the 3rd year of his deal and must be qualified as such if that extension isn’t in place. And yes, any agent worth his salt will leverage that

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Just on this point, this is a misleading way of looking at it.
The reason why the Flames have some many points "walking away" is just a function of having many players walk. Are you seriously concerned about losing Jankowski (7 points), Hamonic (12 points), Reider (10 points), Stone (7 points), Czarnik (3 point), Gus (3 points, unless you are including his season total which maybe you are, as that would be 29 points), etc.

I would strongly argue that Brodie is the only player of any matter that they allowed to walk away. One could argue Hamonic, I guess.

Most of those points will be replaced by others simply playing in those spots instead. Most of the guys were simply not productive. The 100 point calc is just a function of player quantity and doesn't represent true loss or delta betweens players lost and players acquired.

But which of those guys are you ACTUALLY worried about losing?

Points for those types of players is a function of ice time. They are plug and play. Even Rinaldo has more PPG than, say Janko.

[Mass_nerder]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Just on this point, this is a misleading way of looking at it.
The reason why the Flames have some many points "walking away" is just a function of having many players walk. Are you seriously concerned about losing Jankowski (7 points), Hamonic (12 points), Reider (10 points), Stone (7 points), Czarnik (3 point), Gus (3 points, unless you are including his season total which maybe you are, as that would be 29 points), etc.

I would strongly argue that Brodie is the only player of any matter that they allowed to walk away. One could argue Hamonic, I guess.

Most of those points will be replaced by others simply playing in those spots instead. Most of the guys were simply not productive. The 100 point calc is just a function of player quantity and doesn't represent true loss or delta betweens players lost and players acquired.

But which of those guys are you ACTUALLY worried about losing?

Yep; Brodie is the only player that might actually have a real impact. Tanev may be approximately equivalent in terms of the quality of play, but who knows how he'll mesh with Gio/Hanifin.

[AC]

Originally Posted by transplant99

So much wrong with this post but will address the bolded.

No...he will not need to be qualified at "9+ Mil", he will be qualified at his current salary of 7 M and only if an extension hasn't been agreed to at that point....which is 2 full seasons away.

"When this contract expires, No. 19 will be one year shy of unrestricted free agency. His salary in the third year of the new deal is US$9 million, which would boost his qualifying offer at that time to almost eight figures."
https://www.calgarysun.com/sports/ho...6fba69e81/amp/

[IamNotKenKing]

This is in no way, shape or form intended to be wet blankety, but did we ever hear Markstrom's injury? Was it just fatigue from getting barraged every game?

[Dube]

Not going to go far with Johnny Playoff

[DeluxeMoustache]

Only time will tell whether Tre did well

I don’t like it, on the whole, myself, but hope I will.

Goaltending: Markstrom has average numbers over his career, and a good last season. He could be awesome and I hope he is.

Last year, goaltending didn’t kill the team in general. They had other coachable issues including their transition game

Just because Talbot let in a few quick ones didn’t mean he was going to continue, the fake was 3-3, and pulling him for ice cold Rittich was a coaching blunder of magnificent proportion

D: The Flames lost a top 2, mobile D that when paired with Gio elevates him to Norris caliber, plus a top 4 stay at home guy that plays a physical style with a short shelf life, who was shredded by Colorado, and followed it up with a stinker of a season. Tanev is an upgrade on the top 4 guy and a downgrade on Brodie

I got a kick out of some guy that posted an OT goal by Tanev and implied people don’t know what we are getting. Based on many years data, a guy good for 60 out of the 80 games, who peaked at 20 points. And is on the wrong side of 30 for the style he plays

People penciling in Valimaki is great if you like hope as a strategy. He projects to be good, but they need something sure on the ice now, not a year of development

F: Well at least Tre signed future Forever a Flame and crowd favourite Zac Rinaldo

I get that people like to very often point to goaltending as a problem, and don’t have full confidence that the incremental upgrade to Markstrom is enough to offset the downgrades up front

Two years ago the Flames won the division and got rolled by Colorado. Smith played well, the skaters got shredded. With the new style they adopted at the all star break. The pieces were there then, and this team has only gotten worse outside of goaltending. So either the coaches figure out how to win with the roster, or you count on career average (but last year impressive) Markstrom on being the next coming of Kipper.

I’ve seen too many seasons since 2004 to be dancing on the roof with this off season

[bubbsy]

Not yet.

Everyone has discussed at length how useless the flames top 6 has been down the stretch and for the first round exits over the last 2 seasons.

If the gm goes into the new season without doing anything about the mix of forwards in the top6 or even top9, it'll be extremely disappointing.

[Robbob]

Even in they don't tweak anything up front, you can't deny that getting a number one goalie without giving up assets isn't a big win. I think we are also seeing the team try to start transitioning the youth the team has up the line up. A big part of this is trusting Andersson, Hanifin, and Valimaki on the the back end. I think it would be foolish for the team to go into the next season betting on Gio not declining.

To a lesser extent the same can be said for the forwards with Dube, Mangipane, and even Tkachuk who is still only 22, to make a bigger impact. I am not as concerned with the forward group as some.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by bubbsy

Not yet.

Everyone has discussed at length how useless the flames top 6 has been down the stretch and for the first round exits over the last 2 seasons.

If the gm goes into the new season without doing anything about the mix of forwards in the top6 or even top9, it'll be extremely disappointing.

How many impact forwards were there available.

[FlamesAddiction]

I think it was as good as we could have expected. We got one of the biggest names available and the one that fills the biggest need.

Losing Brodie kind of sucks, but I think it was inevitable. I would have liked to keep Reider was as well, but not going to lose sleep over it.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by 1qqaaz

The draft was great, and I would give it an A (I liked every pick except Jake Boltmann). But I think free agency was a disaster, and I would give it an F.

This year's free agency had only 4 contracts that were 4+ years long and were given to players over 30. 2 of them were by the Flames. Defensive defensemen almost never age well. Especially when the player has already regressed for 3 years.
Markstrom has a career 91% and had one pretty good season. He got 36 million dollars for an above-average 43 game stretch. Gaudreau is up soon. Tkachuk will need to be qualified at 9+ mill. All while the cap is still flat. With Giordano aging, the Flames pretty much have no offensive defensemen.

However, the main reason I think free agency was a failure is the loss in other opportunities.
Hall signed a reasonable 1 year deal. Barrie signed cheap. Brodie went for a reasonable price. Toffoli too. Hoffman and Dadonov as well (probably). Flames could have had good value on Haula, Grandlund, and others.

Also, Binnington, Anderssen and Grubaur might be UFAs next year. The 2022 free agency might be the strongest ever.

The Flames had over 100 points worth in players walk away. And they had about 20 points worth (Tanev) come in.

I think the Flames will make the playoffs this year. They might even have home ice in the playoffs. Tanev might be good for a year. Markstrom might be good for a few years.
But I'm not looking forward to having two more old guys on the roster in 3-6 years. I hope I'm wrong, but I am 95% sure I won't be. I've been right about almost every free agent signing since 2005 - I argued with many of you about the Brouwer and Neal signings. If I were a GM, I would never, under any circumstances, give long deals to players over 30.

Look on the bright side, at least this time he picked up his declining 2nd pairing defenseman without giving up a first and two seconds!

[Itse]

I'm leaning towards a B-.


I feel this team really needs to add another forward, and finding nothing from an unusually cheap UFA market does feel like missed opportunity... buuut there's always the chance that that cap space turns into something a lot more valuable later, and it's not like we need a forward right now. The move we didn't make now could allow us to make a better move later.

Tanev I think is likely to become a bad signing. I don't expect him to play up to that contract more than maybe one year. He does address a need though, but other than that I think it's both too much money and too many years.

Markström is a great signing. While there are risks involved like with any goalie, there would IMO have been more risk involved in any other option. This is money spent in the right place, in the right guy, and I think the length and dollars are perfectly acceptable.

[1_Flames_Fan]

Successful

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