Who do the Flames protect in the Expansion Draft?

[BigErnSalute_16]

dp

[GettinIggyWithIt]

Come expansion draft time, it may be a good problem to have if players like Kylington, Gawdin and even Phillips surprise next year and make it an even tougher decision as to who to protect.

I guess Mackey doesn't have to be protected because it's his first pro season next year - correct?

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Nelson

As for replacing Backlund, I have a few points. First, Backlund has already began to regress. Who knows what he is like after next season? Second, if Backlund gets selected, the Flames would have over $5M in cap space to work with. That doesn’t guarantee a Backlund replacement. But $5M could allow the Flames to augment the team in other ways. Third, if Backlund were selected, the Flames centres would include (as I would order them on the depth chart): Lindholm, Monahan, Bennett...In this centre-ice depth chart, Lindholm is Backlund’s replacement. Based on the two months we saw this past season, I think Lindholm could do it...

Excuse me? Backlund's second half and his playoffs were easily the strongest set of games he has played in his entire career. What is this nonsense about his current supposed regression?

I think Backlund is likely to be the exposed forward, and if he is, he is going to be selected by Seattle. If this does happen, the Flames will lose a tremendously good player, but it also testifies to the depth that Calgary has at forward. For fun, try to put together an expansion list for the Oilers without snickering at the fact that Zack Kassian is locked in before even getting to the sixth forward.

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[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Not to my recollection.

The old 3M line to start the year, then the Backlund as a winger experiment that had Lindholm centering the duo.

All told the three of them had 351 five on five minutes together out of Backlund's 984.

Basically 1/3 of the season.

Well, kind of. A few remarks. Firstly, I took a quick check on https://frozenpool.dobbersports.com/...ikael-backlund
and it confirms that the top linemates for Backlund were 88 and 19. Overall, as well as in the first, third and fourth quarters. Frolik was buried early

Other things - changes on the fly, coach shaking things up, different lineups for last minute situations, double shifting a guy on another line, penalties, games missed, etc. eat in to the time that a specific set of 3 players share ice time so that ~1/3 is arguably understated. Often you see regular lines documented around that 40-50 percent of ice time

It’s not like they were a line for only 1/3 of the games, everyone knows that

And yeah, that Backlund as a winger experiment - we all remember that - it was such a bad decision

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

Well, kind of. A few remarks. Firstly, I took a quick check on https://frozenpool.dobbersports.com/...ikael-backlund
and it confirms that the top linemates for Backlund were 88 and 19. Overall, as well as in the first, third and fourth quarters. Frolik was buried early

Other things - changes on the fly, coach shaking things up, different lineups for last minute situations, double shifting a guy on another line, penalties, games missed, etc. eat in to the time that a specific set of 3 players share ice time so that ~1/3 is arguably understated. Often you see regular lines documented around that 40-50 percent of ice time

It’s not like they were a line for only 1/3 of the games, everyone knows that

And yeah, that Backlund as a winger experiment - we all remember that - it was such a bad decision

So, no. It was not a line that was "set all year."

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[getbak]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

Apologies if this was already answered, but how does Tanev's modified NTC work in regards to the expansion draft? I was always under the impression he has to be protected by default, so if the Flames go the 5F, 3D route, it'd be Andersson, Hanifin, Tanev, leaving Gio exposed.

Even if we didn't have to protect Tanev, I'd still for sure expose Gio and take my chances. It doesn't make any organizational sense to protect a 38 year old dman with 1 year left on a $6.75M cap hit.

Only "No Move" clauses that are in force at the time of the expansion draft and continue through the start of the 2021-22 season are required to be protected. Even with those contracts, the player can choose to waive the NMC for the expansion draft.

"No Trade" clauses do not require a player to be protected in the expansion draft.


Currently, the Flames only have 2 players with applicable NMCs on their contracts: Lucic and Markstrom. It is generally expected that prior to completing the trade last year, Treliving and Lucic made a handshake agreement that he will waive the NMC for the Seattle expansion draft. The Flames cannot formally ask Lucic to waive his NMC until sometime after January (for Vegas, teams could make the request in early January in case they needed to make moves prior to the trade deadline).

[Geeoff]

At this point, we're gonna lose someone we don't want to. It may not even be a big deal if Lucic doesn't waive because we'd just have one additional player of around the same value exposed. Won't really change the quality of player the Flames lose.


If I had to guess, Mangiapane will be a Kraken


Protected:


7 forwards: Monahan, Gaudreau, Tkachuk, Dubé, Lindholm, Backlund, Bennett. (If Lucic doesn't waive then Backlund or Bennett exposed)


3 D: Giordano, Andersson, Hanifin

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

So, no. It was not a line that was "set all year."

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Yeah. I seem to have blocked the Backlund at W experiment . For that, I don’t blame myself

Again, it was the top combination for Backlund in Q 1,3,4 and even in the second quarter, it was Backlund’s second most common combination. You can get pedantic about how you want to define “pretty much set all year” I suppose, but there is no disputing it was a regular thing even outside of that short lived experiment

And having said that, I recall Mangiapane having a magnificent slump from late November through late Jan, where he had a 10-12 game scoreless streak and outside of that one 3 point against the Oil, was accomplishing nothing offensively. That was probably a stretch of 25 games

So as much as you are technically correct that they didn’t play together every minute of the year, (which nobody does), pining for a whole year of them being together, which is what we were sort of discussing, doesn’t really capture what happened

I think we can all agree that if they play like they did in early 2020 until things got shut down, then heck yes, we all would love to see that. Most of us agree Backlund was on fire

[Reggie Dunlop]

Treliving swings a deal whereby a pick and a depth/minor leaguer goes to Seattle for overlooking an exposed Flame.

Seattle has to stock a farm team too.

[Geeoff]

Originally Posted by Reggie Dunlop

Treliving swings a deal whereby a pick and a depth/minor leaguer goes to Seattle for overlooking an exposed Flame.

Seattle has to stock a farm team too.

nearly every team that did this got ####ed by Vegas. Imagine how good Shea Theodore and Alex Tuch would look on their original teams

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

Well, kind of. A few remarks. Firstly, I took a quick check on https://frozenpool.dobbersports.com/...ikael-backlund
and it confirms that the top linemates for Backlund were 88 and 19. Overall, as well as in the first, third and fourth quarters. Frolik was buried early

Other things - changes on the fly, coach shaking things up, different lineups for last minute situations, double shifting a guy on another line, penalties, games missed, etc. eat in to the time that a specific set of 3 players share ice time so that ~1/3 is arguably understated. Often you see regular lines documented around that 40-50 percent of ice time

It’s not like they were a line for only 1/3 of the games, everyone knows that

And yeah, that Backlund as a winger experiment - we all remember that - it was such a bad decision

Those are factors sure ... but Monahan was with Gaudreau for 86% of his five on five ice time ... so that's probably a better barometer of the impact of the things you listed.

33% is well off that mark.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Those are factors sure ... but Monahan was with Gaudreau for 86% of his five on five ice time ... so that's probably a better barometer of the impact of the things you listed.

33% is well off that mark.

I get what you are saying. 86 percent implies up to 14 percent leakage of time based on those things, if the intent was to have them on the ice all together

At the same time, 86 can’t be compared to 33 in that it is comparing two players to three.

In the first Q of last season, Backlund’s top 3 line combinations all included Tkachuk, with Mang, Frolik and Czarnik the top 3 time spent as other player on that line

[Nelson]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Excuse me? Backlund's second half and his playoffs were easily the strongest set of games he has played in his entire career. What is this nonsense about his current supposed regression?

I think Backlund is likely to be the exposed forward, and if he is, he is going to be selected by Seattle. If this does happen, the Flames will lose a tremendously good player, but it also testifies to the depth that Calgary has at forward. For fun, try to put together an expansion list for the Oilers without snickering at the fact that Zack Kassian is locked in before even getting to the sixth forward.

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My position is that although Backlund did have a great second half last year and is a good player, I would argue that he was a better player in his twenties.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

I get what you are saying. 86 percent implies up to 14 percent leakage of time based on those things, if the intent was to have them on the ice all together

At the same time, 86 can’t be compared to 33 in that it is comparing two players to three.

In the first Q of last season, Backlund’s top 3 line combinations all included Tkachuk, with Mang, Frolik and Czarnik the top 3 time spent as other player on that line

Right ...

But the original suggestion that you countered was that he wanted to see that trio together for a full season.

They were together for 1/3 of the season.

I would agree on duos, but that wasn't what they suggested.

If you want the apples to apples comparison it's 55% for Tkachuk/Backlund and 40% for Mangipane/Backlund. Still well under the 84% seen from a duo that spent the whole year together.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by blender

As I said before I think Backlund's contract is value for what he provides. He drives possession against the oppositions best players and we all know how much he elevates the play of his linemates.
How are we replacing him for the same money, unless it is a Rookie on an ELC?
Zary? I live in Kamloops and have watched him a lot. He is a good player, fun to watch, exciting. I am looking forward to seeing him play and hope he has a long career as a Flame. But proposing 19-year-old Zary as a Backlund replacement is not logical.
Another thing about Backlund is that he is possibly the best Flame at skating the puck through the neutral zone.
Very underrated player.

I agree with all those things, and don't think he is under-rated as you suggest. Certainly not by me anyway.

But we aren't talking about what Backlund has done for the past 4 or 5 years here. Nor are we talking about next season. We are talking about the 2 seasons after that, when he will be 32 and 33 years old (34 by the end of the 2nd season). And he will still be making $5.35M per. When signed, that was a great deal. It is still a great deal. Will it be a great deal in 2 years? I am not so sure.

Here are Backlund's PPG by year:

2012: 0.268
2013: 0.500
2014: 0.513
2015: 0.519
2016: 0.573
2017: 0.654
2018: 0.549
2019: 0.610
2020: 0.643

He improved every year until 2016/17 when he peaked at .654 PPG. And that is when he signed his nice 6 year, $32.1M contract.

Can he put up 0.6 PPG again this year? I expect he will.

Can he put up 0.6 PPG in the following 2 years? Sadly, it is very likely that he won't. As the points drop, the value for the contract drops. It is the way it goes with age.

So the question isn't whether we can replace Backlund NOW for $5.35M, the question is whether we can replace 32 year old, declining offence Backlund, for $5.35M.

It isn't a slight against the player. It is a simple fact that we all get older.

[Gaskal]

Losing Valimaki because of CSEC doing CSEC things (sentimentality protection spot on Gio) could plausibly happen and therefore I am now enraged thinking about it.

[Dajazz]

Backlund is so underrated on CP, he’s a bonafide 2nd line centre by all metrics and a defensive stalwart who’s always just outside the top Selke voting.

I haven’t seen him slow down at all, he’s getting better each year. Smarter, stronger and meaner.

Gio had a rough year, will he rebound? If not I’m guessing Treliving will have a long hard look at him and that contract. If Valimaki pans out, Andersson/Hanifin takes another step and Tanev (shudder) is that top 4 anchor... well. Tough decisions.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Gaskal

Losing Valimaki because of CSEC doing CSEC things (sentimentality protection spot on Gio) could plausibly happen and therefore I am now enraged thinking about it.

How? Valimaki doesn't have to be protected. Unless I missed something.

[Gaskal]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

How? Valimaki doesn't have to be protected. Unless I missed something.

Oh, that's wonderful news then! Tantrum averted.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Gaskal

Oh, that's wonderful news then! Tantrum averted.

Yup the only positive of his injury.