Stockton Heat 2015/2016 General Discussion

[Trailer Fire]

I'll give you Poirier and Klimchuck, but they are only 21 and I;m still willing to give them time. Ortio has proven he is NHL ready, as he is playing in the NHL. Gillies has been injured for the bulk of the season, and won't be game ready until next year. Kylington is finishing up his first pro season in North America.

I am not on board with firing Huska just yet.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Pretty much every player that was called up this season looked as good or better than I was expecting. Lots of pleasant surprises. Firing the coach that is at least partially responsible for that really doesn't make any sense to me.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

Pretty much every player that was called up this season looked as good or better than I was expecting. Lots of pleasant surprises. Firing the coach that is at least partially responsible for that really doesn't make any sense to me.

What about the skilled forwards? It's really nice that Nakladal and Kulak looked good, but Baertschi, Shinkaruk both did better under a different coach and Poirier looks lost.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

What about the skilled forwards? It's really nice that Nakladal and Kulak looked good, but Baertschi, Shinkaruk both did better under a different coach and Poirier looks lost.

Sven was not going to re-sign with the Flames and had soured on the organization. I'm not going to pin anything on any coach in his case, I'm putting it all on Sven, good or bad.

Shinkaruk had 10 points in 15 games with Huska and looked quite good when he was called up, so I'm not sure what to say. So far, so good. But it is a small sample size.

I thought Poirier looked slightly better this time around with the Flames, but I've personally never been a big fan and I'm not sure he's ever going to be the top 6 forward it sounded like he was supposed to be. It would be nice to see him play extended time with more offensive players to see exactly what we have, but not sure that's going to happen anytime soon. In his case is there a developmental issue or is the player maybe not as good as we had hoped? Jury is still out on him, imo.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

I'm not sure what Huska's post game sound bytes really have to do with his coaching ability. Who cares if Troy Ward sounded smarter? Ward completely failed to develop our best offensive prospect Baertshi into a player for us. He looked completely lost when he was called up.

I've been very, very impressed by how NHL ready our prospects have looked this year. That's more of a sign he's doing things right then how he answers questions of reporters. I understand why people in the media might not like a guy if he's less of a media darling. But to suggest he should be fired when almost every guy we called up this year didn't look out of place? Can't agree at all. If your problem with him is his post game pressers then you need to be judging him on how well he develops prospects because that's the main focus of his job, not crafting smart or feel good answers to reporters.

[Da_Chief]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

What about the skilled forwards? It's really nice that Nakladal and Kulak looked good, but Baertschi, Shinkaruk both did better under a different coach and Poirier looks lost.

Hunter put up 10 points in 15 games. He needed time to settle in, started scoring afterwards.

Baetschi has 29 in 41 under Ward [0.7 ppg], and 25 in 36 under Huska [0.69]. Not much difference there.

I agree with Poirier, he didn't grow this year and I wasn't impressed by his call-up either. Maybe there is a language barrier going on there, who knows.

On the other hand, Jankowski has come in and put up points.

Agostino in his 2nd full season improved his numbers.

I'm not too worries about the skilled positions, as there are only 3 openings in the top 9 right now. One of those openings likely filled with this years draft pick. That leaves 2 spots and from the looks of it Hunter Shinkaruk might be a favorite to win one of those spots next year. Possibly a UFA and not much left.

Growth of Kulak, Wotherspoon and Nakladal was impressive though. Wotherspoon lookeed like he was done in the organization and came in and played well. Now will compete for a spot next year.

[Drury18]

Okay, don't judge him on soundbytes then. Judge him on performance.

He's the worst Flames AHL Coach in 8 years.

Playfair: 71-61-9-13, .591% Winning Percentage (2nd Round, Missed Playoff)

Ward: 119-83-12-14, .614% Winning Percentage (2nd Round, Missed Playoff, 1st Round)

Huska: 66-64-8-4, .529% Winning Percentage (Missed Playoffs, Missed Playoffs)


Stockton is 27th (out of 30) on the PK this season. Somehow, even worse then last year.

We scored the 4th FEWEST goals in the AHL this year.

We let in 3.24 goals per game and only score 2.86.

Only 7 players got double digits in goals. This is down from 9 last year. Teams like the Griffins and Stars have 10-14 guys per year with 10+ goals.

But hey, Huska's our man right? Couple prospects looked NHL ready so no worries. Let's not look at ways to improve our AHL team because a couple prospects looked NHL ready. Being bottom dwellers in a few categories in the AHL doesn't matter.

[Da_Chief]

Goalies are your best penalty killers. There was no stability in net all season, which explains the bad PK and goals against.

Stars had Ranford in his 3rd full AHL season, McKenzie 3rd full AHL season, Morin 31 years old, Dowling 6th Pro season, Ralo 34 year old AHL vet, Hulak 26 years old who spent 4 years at Canadian unversity now 3 years in AHL,...You get the point. Although I'm a fan of Derek Lexdal, has had success everywhere.

Griffins had Miele 5 years AHL 27 years old, Tangradi 26 years old has played 144 NHL games too, Zengelrle 26 years old but similar to Agostino with 2 years pro experience, Callahn 5 year AHL vet, etc.

Obviously both teams had some younger guys in there to help too.

Look at Heat:
25 year old Grant 36 games played, career high before was 38 points in 75 games. Huska helped him.

23 year old Hamilton in his 4th AHL season, also had his best ppg season.

23 year old Agostino, in his 2nd full season

22 year old Elson, in his 3rd Pro season, spent time in ECHL

24 year old Shore, in his 4th AHL season.

Raymond only 15 games.

After that it's bunch of young guys in Arnold, Shinkaruk, Klinchuk, Poirier, Smil, Hathaway, Kylington etc.

There is a HUGE difference between those high powered teams and Heat.

But hey, let not take context into account. Developing prospects is over-rated, let's bring in bunch of olders guys next year and waive our pom poms that we have 10-14 guys scoring 10+ goals in the AHL.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

The main reason he is employed is to turn young players into NHLers. The team's record does nothing to speak to how well he did his job. In fact prospect heavy teams are expected to be outperformed by teams who have loaded up on minor league veterans.

What does speak to how well he performed his main role? How the prospects grew and learned. How NHL ready they are or are becoming. By those metrics he's done a pretty good job IMO.

[Alberta_Beef]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

By those metrics he's done a pretty good job IMO.

Not really. Half the guys that played better this year than last year aren't really prospects and as many returning players had disappointing years as impressive and Kylington was the only rookie that really impressed and half of that was because we kept being told how god awful he was defensively and the other half being that he is just 18. When 2/3 of your returning players stagnate or regress, something is wrong.

[Da_Chief]

Originally Posted by Alberta_Beef

Not really. Half the guys that played better this year than last year aren't really prospects and as many returning players had disappointing years as impressive and Kylington was the only rookie that really impressed and half of that was because we kept being told how god awful he was defensively and the other half being that he is just 18. When 2/3 of your returning players stagnate or regress, something is wrong.

Can you elaborate please? Who are these players?

[PeteMoss]

Successful AHL teams have AHL vets who lead the way.

Grand Rapids was mentioned here as a team that plays the same system and do better than the Heat. They also have a 27 and 28 year old as their top two scorers.

The Flames could go out and sign guys like Chris Bourque, Eric Tangradi, TJ Brennan and Marc Arcabello and have a team with a better record but they decided to give prospects legit roles and only use a few vets on the blue line or down in the line-up.

I have no doubt the Flames head office knows they aren't going to win in the AHL with the line-up they field no matter who the coach is.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

Pretty much every player that was called up this season looked as good or better than I was expecting. Lots of pleasant surprises. Firing the coach that is at least partially responsible for that really doesn't make any sense to me.

Several people have made this argument.

The problem with it, for me, is that there is no benchmark to make any kind of comparison. You (and others) say the prospects that have come up have looked good. And for the most part I agree.

But what does that mean? Could they have been better? Of course. Could they have been worse? Certainly.

My point is: HOW good have they been? Can we say that Huska have elevated their readiness? How much credit does he deserve here?

All I'm saying is: how can we tell from this metric?

[Drury18]

Here is a comparison of stats for Flames/Heat players who have played for Huska over the last two years.

Spoiler for size only

Spoiler!

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Several people have made this argument.

The problem with it, for me, is that there is no benchmark to make any kind of comparison. You (and others) say the prospects that have come up have looked good. And for the most part I agree.

But what does that mean? Could they have been better? Of course. Could they have been worse? Certainly.

My point is: HOW good have they been? Can we say that Huska have elevated their readiness? How much credit does he deserve here?

All I'm saying is: how can we tell from this metric?

I get what you're saying. I guess the only ones that can say for certain, or have to make that call, is Flames' brass.

All I can do I give my opinion from what I see. It's pretty nice to see players get called up, step right in and fit in with the big club pretty seamlessly. And nice to see improvement from younger guys that have a future with the club like Wotherspoon and Kulak. My question is do we want to fire a development coach because there's a chance there might be some improvement? I guess we'll have to wait to see what Treliving & co. have to say about it.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by Alberta_Beef

Not really. Half the guys that played better this year than last year aren't really prospects and as many returning players had disappointing years as impressive and Kylington was the only rookie that really impressed and half of that was because we kept being told how god awful he was defensively and the other half being that he is just 18. When 2/3 of your returning players stagnate or regress, something is wrong.

Huh? My metrics were that Kulak, Wotherspoon, Hathaway, Grant, Hamilton, Agostino, Nakladal, etc all looked NHL ready this year when called on. That IMO is the most telling thing about how Huska is developing these players.

I don't think stats is a good way to judge a player's progress on rounding out their game and being ready for the NHL. In the case of a lot of players they aren't worried about their offensive game, they are rounding out their two-way game, developing them physically, etc. You could have your numbers drop but your overall game has improved. Poirier looked more NHL ready this time despite having what some might describe as a poor year.

It's impossible to tell much of anything in terms of development from stats or the standings. Points in the minors are something but developing guys into NHLers takes a lot more than that into account. We don't know what they've specifically asked these players to work on so how we could measure the progress ourselves? And points tell us almost nothing about how much a guy has improved in two-way play, taking hits to make a play, fighting through checking, etc.

I'm still waiting for a solid argument as to why Huska has been a disappointment. In all my years of watching the Flames I can't remember a year where so many guys were called up from the minors and didn't look out of place one bit. I'm very, very impressed by how well the call ups looked. Huska deserves credit for that and management has pointed out that out, rightfully so.

[GranteedEV]

I can't help but wonder if the dropoff in AHL stats has everything to do with the shift in division to the Pacific as the schedules are heavily divisional. The Kings, Sharks, and Ducks have strong, mature farm systems (that are now just a drive away) and the Oilers farm team got some serious goal tending.

I know it's easy to say "AHL stats" but there's a difference between playing the Iowa Wild ten times and the Ontario Reign ten times.

The Heat seemed to play their only offensive games against the Texas Stars and out-division opponents.

[chubeyr1]

Lot of hate for Huska in this thread. Much of it deserved too!

We have not been graduating many prospects from the AHL team.
Discussions on Shinkaruk Nakladal should be irrelavent. Shinkaruk is a product of Vancouvers AHL team and Nakladal is what ? A 27 year old professional player.

Kulak and Wotherspoon look fine but I would not say their progression has been great. Decent at best. Couple of years back Wotherspoon was in the NHL and doing well. Two years later he comes back up and does OK. Not alot of progression in my eyes.

Grant (FA signing) Hathaway Agostino Shore were ok at best.

Prospects like Sieloff Klimchuck Arnold Poirier Carrol Smith dont seem to be progressing well.

Not all of it is on the coach. Some is the system he may be forced to use. Some is the players themself. Polish a turd its still a turd.

Not saying the coach should be fired but would not defend him from being fired either. Based off Hartley and Treliving I think Huska is safe for one more year.

[devo22]

Originally Posted by Drury18

Here is a comparison of stats for Flames/Heat players who have played for Huska over the last two years.

Spoiler for size only

Spoiler!

so the only players that have really regressed are Poirier, Arnold, Wotherspoon and Kulak. Hathaway had the same ppg production as last year and has looked NHL ready as a bottom six forward in his callup, and Culkin almost lost a full year to two different injuries. With Wotherspoon, I'm not sure points total is the most significant stat given the type of defenseman he's projecting to be, but sure, there's regression here. Poirier hit the sophomore wall pretty hard, but I'm sure he'll rebound ... he's still young. Arnold regressed for sure. Kulak too, but again - not the most important stat for defensemen.

[getbak]

Charlotte ended up losing its last two games (final five in total), so the Heat could have been playing for a playoff spot this weekend, if only they had beaten those damned Condors on Wednesday.

Now, they can just play spoilers against San Jose.