Yep, I don't even blame Johnny exclusively. He's physically tiny and asked to lead the team offensively in playoff hockey... good luck!
The team isn't structure properly to support him and put him in ideal situations to produce.
That is dangerously close to echoing my much maligned theory that a team can only be successful with 2 or 3 low contact, highly skilled players. The playoff Flames were down to Gaudreau, Ryan,Brodie, Gio, Gustafsson and Jankowski that rely 99 % on their superior skills..... 3 too many for herd immunity to a physical game that Johnny Hockey needs.
I think this may be the first time I have included Gio on my all skills no contact list, but it is what it is.
Rieder was in this group over the regular season but he figured out what the Playoffs are all about and was able to elevate his physical game.
PS Monahan usually also usually makes that list but relative to his regular season play he was a beast in the playoffs. You could tell because in the regular season his is not physically involved enough to lose his lid.
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Johnny Hockey needs to bulk up and start playing a man's game instead of being the little Johnny-boy back in the Peewee days. He's gotta start playing like Mangiapane or Dube and start going in the hard dirty areas. If not, have a happy hockey career somewhere else. Guys like Fleury and Mullen were small guys but they sure didn't back away from anything.
Johnny Hockey needs to bulk up and start playing a man's game instead of being the little Johnny-boy back in the Peewee days. He's gotta start playing like Mangiapane or Dube and start going in the hard dirty areas. If not, have a happy hockey career somewhere else. Guys like Fleury and Mullen were small guys but they sure didn't back away from anything.
I disagree with this view entirely. Johnny has been successful because of the way that he plays. He's elusive, quick on his edges, has great vision, and excellent hands. He isn't the most complete player, but put him in a better position to highlight his strengths and keep adding good players to the team. You don't force your most skilled player to grind and much when he just doesn't have the strength to win that type of game. Play him to his strengths.
Guys like Dube and Mangiapane don't play like Gaudreau by choice. They don't have the ability to play like him.
Johnny has a lot of vision on the ice and probably one who wants to win the most out of every Flames. However, if he continues to play small and fragile, there's no way for him to go beyond what he can do. For all the playoff series involving bigger teams, when Gaudreau has been render totally in-effective. Ducks, Avs, and now Stars have shown that. He's not willing to dump and chase the puck in the corners. The oppositions are all lined up at the blue line waiting for him to try and go around, but 9 times out of 10, he'll cough up the puck trying to avoid a check. What more proof does anyone need?
Johnny has a lot of vision on the ice and probably one who wants to win the most out of every Flames. However, if he continues to play small and fragile, there's no way for him to go beyond what he can do. For all the playoff series involving bigger teams, when Gaudreau has been render totally in-effective. Ducks, Avs, and now Stars have shown that. He's not willing to dump and chase the puck in the corners. The oppositions are all lined up at the blue line waiting for him to try and go around, but 9 times out of 10, he'll cough up the puck trying to avoid a check. What more proof does anyone need?
Dump and chase hockey is not a good way to utilize Gaudreau. He need support.
Look at Vegas, they don’t dump and chase. They attack in waves with constant support. Even if the carrier bobbles the puck they have two guys right there to support.
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This morning Eric Francis doubles down and says he thinks "Gaudreau is gone" and it "doesn't matter" if he takes responsibility for the poor performance of the 1st line...again.
I know people don't have much respect for Francis but I'd be really surprised if he would stick his neck out like this if he didn't feel certain that John was going to be shipped out.
The same Francis who said Iginla was gone for how many seasons again before he finally got his ill wish?
Francis is a moron, I personally just tune him out, I wish more (ex)players like Glencross would just showed him up how much an idiot he is.
Of course Sportsnet ended up turfing Glencross instead.
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Dump and chase hockey is not a good way to utilize Gaudreau. He need support.
Look at Vegas, they don’t dump and chase. They attack in waves with constant support. Even if the carrier bobbles the puck they have two guys right there to support.
Yeah, but do you see any of the Flames top line forwards doing that? You can bobble all you want in the neutral zone entering the attack zone, but if you can't get through the wall, you need to dump the puck into the corner and use the speed to attack. If you do that, the opposition's wall on the blue line will break down. You can skate around all you want in regular season, but in the playoffs where you're playing the same team in a series, you have to mix things up a bit. Gaudreau and Monahan are so predictable and that's why they're pretty much useless in any series. Flames aren't the Golden Knights and they don't have enough guys that'll go into the dirty areas to make things happen.
Gaudreau is a guy put in the wrong position. The Flames are weak up the middle with Monahan being fairly slow, not very creative on the rush which means he has a lack of ability to create offensive zone entries. This leaves the bulk of the offensive workload to Gaudreau, who because of his size can be easily eliminated in the playoffs, especially when the refereeing becomes completely unpredictable. Monahan doesn't create space for Gaudreau, and neither does Lindholm really. Gaudreau needs a fast, big guy, up the middle that can create that space. Trading away our only guy that can create offense on his own is going to be a big mistake. Monahan as a 1C is going to limit this teams ability, and not having a legit top line centre sine Joe Nieuwendyk is the reason we have been so average for so long.
Gaudreau is a guy put in the wrong position. The Flames are weak up the middle with Monahan being fairly slow, not very creative on the rush which means he has a lack of ability to create offensive zone entries. This leaves the bulk of the offensive workload to Gaudreau, who because of his size can be easily eliminated in the playoffs, especially when the refereeing becomes completely unpredictable. Monahan doesn't create space for Gaudreau, and neither does Lindholm really. Gaudreau needs a fast, big guy, up the middle that can create that space. Trading away our only guy that can create offense on his own is going to be a big mistake. Monahan as a 1C is going to limit this teams ability, and not having a legit top line centre sine Joe Nieuwendyk is the reason we have been so average for so long.
Agreed. Gaudreau seems to want to play a speed game on a regular basis, but lets be honest here, Monahan is not fleet of foot and never will be, so severe limitations with that duo when the game changes. I could see Gaudreau having success with a quicker center as we’ve seen with Derek Ryan and even Nathan MacKinnon in the World Cup.
I don’t know what’s available out there, but I’m not exactly confident in the Treliving’s team to find the right guy, so at this point, I’m not opposed to trading Gaudreau as long as the team can find a player with a comparable skillset.
This team barely made the playoffs this season so any drop off in goals or powerplay production could relegate this team into a lottery position instead. This place would absolutely explode if the Flames missed the playoffs next season and would definitely spell the end for Treliving’s tenure, so he can’t afford a colossal blunder this offseason.
