Treliving needs to start feeling the heat

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

Hm. Looked like a drive by with no added value.

Ok, you’re the boss!

Well ten people thanked the post, that's a sign.

After a tough loss it's tough to be an even keeled hockey fan in a world of overreaction.

[Erick Estrada]

Treliving is not likely going to survive another season out of the playoffs and justly so. He's made more moves than any GM over his tenure and yet here we are staring at a team that has not improved over what he took over. He will have nobody to blame but himself as the Gulutzan hire was costly on and off the ice and he's totally failed at addressing the goaltending woes whether it be the goaltenders or the way they are being coached. It just hasn't worked and he's got the rest of this season to try and do something about it but it's going to be a very difficult task to pull off during the season.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I have my view. And as with everyone my view is biased. But i have concerned about a couple players at the top of the roster and whether you can win with them. I don't see the commitment.

Agree.

I’m actually not worried about Gaudreau. He’s dynamic and creates offensively and seems to hate to lose. Tkachuk is a star IMO and I think we need to get a better finisher on his line to take advantage of his skill set.

I do worry about Monahan a bit lately. An absolute warrior to play through what he did last season but he just hasn’t developed the way we hoped he would as a 200ft center. And I feel like his play in the defensive zone has potentially regressed.

I look at guys who we directly compared him to at the time their contracts were signed like Mackinnon, Scheifele, Horvat, etc and feel like those guys have really developed as 200ft players and continued to get better while Monahan has remained stagnant and doesn’t seems committed to playing a strong 200ft game.

Then guys like Backlund, Bennett, Lindholm, etc are good support pieces but not really stars.

On the back end Giordano is still a top 10 dman in the league. Everyone is better when they play with the guy. I like the young pieces in Hanifin, Andersson, and Valimaki. Hamonic hasn’t really played this year so tough to say but think he’s okay as a shutdown guy even though we paid too much to get him.

Brodie and Stone are concerns though (although I’ve liked Stone more this year than last so far). Brodie just needs to simplify his game IMO. Get back to skating the puck and using his feet to make plays. As a third pairing guy Stone is fine but just gets paid too much.

Unless Monahan and Brodie show a bit of return to form this season right now though then I think we may struggle a bit for the time being.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Treliving is not likely going to survive another season out of the playoffs and justly so. He's made more moves than any GM over his tenure and yet here we are staring at a team that has not improved over what he took over. He will have nobody to blame but himself as the Gulutzan hire was costly on and off the ice and he's totally failed at addressing the goaltending woes whether it be the goaltenders or the way they are being coached. It just hasn't worked and he's got the rest of this season to try and do something about it but it's going to be a very difficult task to pull off during the season.

Which is why detonating the core and allowing the same GM to bungle around for even longer is stupid.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

Agree.

I’m actually not worried about Gaudreau. He’s dynamic and creates offensively and seems to hate to lose. Tkachuk is a star IMO and I think we need to get a better finisher on his line to take advantage of his skill set.

I do worry about Monahan a bit lately. An absolute warrior to play through what he did last season but he just hasn’t developed the way we hoped he would as a 200ft center. And I feel like his play in the defensive zone has potentially regressed.

I look at guys who we directly compared him to at the time their contracts were signed like Mackinnon, Scheifele, Horvat, etc and feel like those guys have really developed as 200ft players and continued to get better while Monahan has remained stagnant and doesn’t seems committed to playing a strong 200ft game.

Then guys like Backlund, Bennett, Lindholm, etc are good support pieces but not really stars.

On the back end Giordano is still a top 10 dman in the league. Everyone is better when they play with the guy. I like the young pieces in Hanifin, Andersson, and Valimaki. Hamonic hasn’t really played this year so tough to say but think he’s okay as a shutdown guy even though we paid too much to get him.

Brodie and Stone are concerns though (although I’ve liked Stone more this year than last so far). Brodie just needs to simplify his game IMO. Get back to skating the puck and using his feet to make plays. As a third pairing guy Stone is fine but just gets paid too much.

Unless Monahan and Brodie show a bit of return to form this season right now though then I think we may struggle a bit for the time being.

Tkachuk for me is the most important player on the team long-term and the guy I build around.
I don't see much difference between Johnny and Monahan. My concerns on both are the same. High end offense but lack of commitment to overall game. Johnny may hate to lose, but i don't see him committing to the type of hockey that I think you need to play to win consistently.



As I said before, you can hate to lose, but are you truly committed to doing what you need to do to win?



It is easy to hate to lose. Sustained commitment is hard.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

Which is why detonating the core and allowing the same GM to bungle around for even longer is stupid.

I don't think he's bungling around. I think generally his asset management has been good. At some point the players have to deliver.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Tkachuk for me is the most important player on the team long-term and the guy I build around.
I don't see much difference between Johnny and Monahan. My concerns on both are the same. High end offense but lack of commitment to overall game. Johnny may hate to lose, but i don't see him committing to the type of hockey that I think you need to play to win consistently.



As I said before, you can hate to lose, but are you truly committed to doing what you need to do to win?



It is easy to hate to lose. Sustained commitment is hard.

I saw Backlund fishing a few pucks out of the net last night with his -3 and in fact Johnny and Monahan were the few forwards that were only -1. These two players and Tkachuk are pretty well the only thing this franchise has going for it and blaming them for a team issue that predates them is silly. The flames blue line has underperformed for most of a decade now. Great on paper, crap on ice. Most of the shoddy play over the last three games have been defensemen totally out of position where Monahan and Gaudreau weren't even on the ice.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I saw Backlund fishing a few pucks out of the net last night with his -3 and in fact Johnny and Monahan were the few forwards that were only -1. These two players and Tkachuk are pretty well the only thing this franchise has going for it and blaming them for a team issue that predates them is silly. The flames blue line has underperformed for a decade now. Great on paper, crap on ice.

Well simple numbers suggest the Monahan/Gaudreau line has been leaking chances against for years, so not sure why you are so quick to give them a pass based on plus/minus comparables in one game.

Vanek hockey doesn't win. You need guys that are willing to do the dirty work when the puck is in their own zone.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Well simple numbers suggest the Monahan/Gaudreau line has been leaking chances against for years, so not sure why you are so quick to give them a pass based on plus/minus comparables in one game.

Vanek hockey doesn't win. You need guys that are willing to do the dirty work when the puck is in their own zone.

I think you also know that a lot of top scoring lines leak chances. You still need to score goals at the end of the day to win hockey games and few duos have been as prolific over the years.

[Flash Walken]

It used to be that you could put a defensively reliable player out with one or two defensively suspect players and that would more or less balance out the line, so if Monahan and gaudreau didn't want to play defense or hustle, Lindholm would be there to take the pressure off.

That dynamic is gone from the NHL. The best players are 3 zone players who score, then players with overwhelming offense who struggle defensively, then good defensive players who can't put up top end points and finally middle of the road or upper tier producers without defense or top end producers with glaring, truck sized holes in their game.

Monahan and gaudreau are that last category of player, and the team has tried to patch that by having great defensive players come out after their shift to create some balance. Having a top checking line following a porous offensive line is the equivalent of sticking Dirk Graham or Bob Gainey out there, and that used to be how it was done.

Now all it gets you is wanting. Wanting the offensive players to give a damn defensively and wanting the defensive player to be able to produce some offense.

Neither looks like it is a possibility going forward.

Centre depth is now the biggest issue facing the tram going forward. Not enough balance in minutes between offensive and defensive play, no real options to play Monahan and gaudreau away from each other, no real way to improve on the situation with assets gone and cap consumed.

Doldrums.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I saw Backlund fishing a few pucks out of the net last night with his -3 and in fact Johnny and Monahan were the few forwards that were only -1. These two players and Tkachuk are pretty well the only thing this franchise has going for it and blaming them for a team issue that predates them is silly. The flames blue line has underperformed for most of a decade now. Great on paper, crap on ice. Most of the shoddy play over the last three games have been defensemen totally out of position where Monahan and Gaudreau weren't even on the ice.

I don’t disagree with that. However, I view defense to be a team responsibility. And within that, I view that for a decade or more, our forwards have, for the most part, been very poor in this area. The latter years of the Iginla era were a shining example of that, where there was a clear disconnect between Iginla and Regehr in terms of the core leaders. Regehr was clearly frustrated with the lack of commitment to defense from the top forward, including 12.



I think Johnny and Monahan are poor players in their own zone and defense overall. And I don't think they are good enough offensively to make up for that.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I think you also know that a lot of top scoring lines leak chances. You still need to score goals at the end of the day to win hockey games and few duos have been as prolific over the years.

But they're bad against their peers.

I'm not comparing them to the league's best shut down lines.

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

Then the bunch of you were right. It became fairly obvious fairly quick he was not a good fit.

Personally I’m not there with Peters, but I can’t for the life of me wonder why a proper search wasn’t conducted. Companies conduct a search to hire the janitor and secretary let alone the head coach. Nope he’s the guy. How do you know if you didn’t talk to anyone else? Makes NO sense.

Yes, I agree. It's not at the point that I want him gone either but it was incredibly stupid of Treliving to hire him right away without seeing who else was out there.

Even with the job I was just hired for I was told that as soon as they saw my resume they knew I was the guy they wanted but it took them over a month to finally hire me because they wanted to see who else was interested and if they were a better fit.

[madmike]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

At what point do the Flames top players start "feeling the heat".

We have discussions about the coach, GM, captain, goalie coach, goalies, new players acquired.


There is a small group that has been around for a few years now that perhaps we should start looking at?


Where is the core's accountability. They are on their 3rd coach now. At some point, when you've changed everything else, when do you start asking if you've got the right guys at the top of the roster?

The players should feel heat but what are you going to do? Monahan and Gaudreau are one-dimensional players. I honestly don’t see them having the skill or ability to be anything else. At the end of the day I think the tram’s biggest issue is its supposed top players are not complete players which is always going to limit the team’s ability to compete.

Tkachuk is far more valuable than either of them - a complete player who does it all. Bottom line is I’m not sure the Flames can win with this group of players. Their skill set is just too limited.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I don't think he's bungling around. I think generally his asset management has been good. At some point the players have to deliver.

If they don't he will still be gone, because he selected and built the team with them.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Nobody is really delivering.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by madmike

The players should feel heat but what are you going to do? Monahan and Gaudreau are one-dimensional players. I honestly don’t see them having the skill or ability to be anything else. At the end of the day I think the tram’s biggest issue is its supposed top players are not complete players which is always going to limit the team’s ability to compete.

Most skilled players can become good defensive players if they really want to. It's largely a matter of concentration and effort. Monahan's skating will hold him back from ever being elite defensively, but he can be better than terrible. If he wants to be. It isn't clear to me that he does.

[GordonBlue]

Originally Posted by bubbsy

I think the flames players just aren't good enough. The rebuild and bottoming out period was short and they didn't get good enough core players.

Gaudreau is special, tkatchuk is a decent piece, but after that it's been disappointing. The flames don't have strength up the middle, the defencemen are not great, goaltending is completely up in the air.

I think it's time to look at the core and really ask if they are anything but average in the current nhl: Monahan, Gaudreau, Backlund, tkatchuk, Giordano, Brodie, hanafin, hamonic, smith.

That is not going to be a true cup contending group.

really? we hear every year that the D is the Flames biggest strength.
On paper one of if not the best top 4/ top 6 in the NHL.

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

really? we hear every year that the D is the Flames biggest strength.
On paper one of if not the best top 4/ top 6 in the NHL.

I see one truly elite, top 10 defenceman (Giordano).
I see one former elite defenceman who lost his brain 3 years ago and is still looking for it (Brodie).
I see a raw 21-year old defenceman who has been completely sheltered in his first three seasons in this league (Hanifin).
I see a 3rd pairing defender who spends most of the time in his zone because he can't move the puck up the ice (Hamonic).
I see an immobile replacement level defender who makes more than $3 million for the next two years, who is somehow worse defensively than he is offensively (Stone).
And finally, I see two high potential rookies but ultimately are inexperienced and sheltered (Andersson and Valimaki).

The defence is not good.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Bingo

But they're bad against their peers.

I'm not comparing them to the league's best shut down lines.

Again they are only on the ice for 1/3 of the game or less. It's not like they are forcing Brodie to cough up the puck or Hanafin basically taking nobody on a 3 on 1. Good teams don't make the amount of defensive miscues the Flames do. It happens far too much and it's not forward related a lot of the time.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by GordonBlue

really? we hear every year that the D is the Flames biggest strength.
On paper one of if not the best top 4/ top 6 in the NHL.

Most of that is due, imo, to outrageous expectations for what kind of player Brodie is and the quality of game he brings.

If you believe he is a top pairing defender the lineup looks good. if you think he is a bottom pairing guy all of a sudden there is some doubt.

Of course D are made to look substantially better or worse based on the commitment--not the talent--of the forwards that play with them.

Brodie spends a lot of time with Gaudreau and Monahan so its going to be even harder for him.