Feb 14 Practice

[sureLoss]

No sign of Ramo at practice

Pat Steinberg @Fan960Steinberg
#Flames lines:
Gaudreau-Monahan-Hudler;
Bennett-Stajan-Frolik;
Ferland-Colborne-Jones;
Bollig-Granlund-Bouma.
Backlund not practicing.


Backlund has been given a few practices/morning skates off in the past few weeks. Could mean he is dealing with an injury.

Stajan moving up in the line up is interesting cause it could indicate Backlund might be questionable. Or as Steinberg just suggested, Stajan could be a candidate to get scratched and is a place holder for Backlund.

Jones looks to be practicing full time, missing a game after blocking a shot. May be good to go.

[browna]

No Russell either...

[TheScorpion]

Excellent to see Jones is ok.

Russell just taking a day?

[saillias]

Stajan looks done this year. Grant or Shore could do what he does right now easy.

[hockey.modern]

Backlund might be playing injured, but he's playing his best hockey in his NHL career right now.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by saillias

Stajan looks done this year. Grant or Shore could do what he does right now easy.

That contract by Burke was a real head scratcher. Too much money and too much term to a guy who was a 3rd/4th liner and possibly trending down.

It may be a bit of a problem going forward as I don't think you can pay Backlund and Stajan 7 million to centre your bottom two lines.

[Prufrock]

Calgary Flames ‏@NHLFlames 19m19 minutes ago
"We've got to cut those penalties out." - Mark Giordano on the team's play in the last two games

"All I want to do is play well and things will take care of themselves." - Jonas Hiller

Calgary Flames ‏@NHLFlames 26m26 minutes ago
Mikael Backlund and Kris Russell did not skate today but Bob Hartley noted they are good to go for tomorrow's game. #ANAvsCGY

Pat Steinberg ‏@Fan960Steinberg 25m25 minutes ago
Maintenance days for Backlund and Russell. Jones good to go for tomorrow. #Flames

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

That contract by Burke was a real head scratcher. Too much money and too much term to a guy who was a 3rd/4th liner and possibly trending down.

It may be a bit of a problem going forward as I don't think you can pay Backlund and Stajan 7 million to centre your bottom two lines.

You can totally do that and it makes sense, only it doesn't if you're also playing your 6th and 7th defensemen a total $6.5M

[Bar-Down]

Originally Posted by saillias

Stajan looks done this year. Grant or Shore could do what he does right now easy.

Yeah that was a really bad signing by Burke. I wonder what his reasoning was at the time. I could've seen maybe a 2 year extension but he is signed until 2017/2018 at 3.125 mill. Pretty rough stuff.

So much dead weight on this roster still after this year:

Stajan - 3.125 until 2017/18
Raymond - 3.15 until 2016/17
Smid - 3.50 until 2016/17
Wideman - 5.25 until 2016/17
Engelland - 2.917 until 2016/17
Bollig - 1.25 until 2016/17

19.19 Million that contributes very little. Engelland is probably the only guy on the list that I am okay with. Yes he makes too much money but he's a pretty decent bottom pairing guy that brings toughness and leadership. You need guys like that. The rest of the list can go away though. At least all but Stajans contract will be gone after next year.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

That contract by Burke was a real head scratcher. Too much money and too much term to a guy who was a 3rd/4th liner and possibly trending down.

It may be a bit of a problem going forward as I don't think you can pay Backlund and Stajan 7 million to centre your bottom two lines.

I agree with this and think that Backlund may be the guy on the move. I am not a fan of the Stajan contract but it is not crippling and he still plays a good veteran role for the team. Backlund has value in a trade and could be dealt for a winger to play in the top 6 with Bennett moving to centre.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

I agree with this and think that Backlund may be the guy on the move. I am not a fan of the Stajan contract but it is not crippling and he still plays a good veteran role for the team. Backlund has value in a trade and could be dealt for a winger to play in the top 6 with Bennett moving to centre.

I think Backlund has really solidified himself into the lineup this year. He's an ideal #3 centre IMO who can play top two line roles if you really need. He is one of our bigger trade chips that we could actually part with but at the same time he's also occupying an important role on the team going forward. I could see moving him in the right deal if he gets you a key piece back but if not I'd be fine with him being on the team the next few years. I've been pretty happy with his play overall this year. Not sure we can really move him until Jankowski is ready unless we wanna take a temporary step backwards.

Stajan has been okayish but for his money and his role I dunno. Good vet and his contract by itself doesn't cripple us. I guess we could go either way there. He may be one of the vets we keep around.

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

I agree with this and think that Backlund may be the guy on the move. I am not a fan of the Stajan contract but it is not crippling and he still plays a good veteran role for the team. Backlund has value in a trade and could be dealt for a winger to play in the top 6 with Bennett moving to centre.

As long as him and Bennett keep finding success playing together I don't believe he is going any where this year.

[handgroen]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

No sign of Ramo at practice

Pat Steinberg @Fan960Steinberg
#Flames lines:
Gaudreau-Monahan-Hudler;
Bennett-Stajan-Frolik;
Ferland-Colborne-Jones;
Bollig-Granlund-Bouma.
Backlund not practicing.


Backlund has been given a few practices/morning skates off in the past few weeks. Could mean he is dealing with an injury.

Stajan moving up in the line up is interesting cause it could indicate Backlund might be questionable. Or as Steinberg just suggested, Stajan could be a candidate to get scratched and is a place holder for Backlund.

Jones looks to be practicing full time, missing a game after blocking a shot. May be good to go.

[Illuminaughty]

Backlund has been really good this year, I think he's got more skill then some people around here think he does and he's still relatively young.I wouldn't deal him unless someone really wants to overpay.


Most of our kind of meh contracts were largely do to management thinking they weren't going to be any good for 3 to 4 years. It kind of sucks because the team took a giant leap forward last year but is hampered by those meh contracts. Were likely stuck with these guys for the duration of their deals but were not a real contention threat for likely another two to four years anyway.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Illuminaughty

Most of our kind of meh contracts were largely do to management thinking they weren't going to be any good for 3 to 4 years.

I read this a lot on here and I just don't agree. A bad contract is a bad contract. If your logic is that you thought your team would be bad and so it wouldn't matter, well that seems like an excuse and not a valid reason.

If that really was the teams logic, we are seeing it's flaws today. The Flames are still a bad team and we are seeing these contracts are inhibiting progress.

I just think it's a case of falling in love with your own players and valuing per your teams depth chart vs. their value across the league.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

I read this a lot on here and I just don't agree. A bad contract is a bad contract. If your logic is that you thought your team would be bad and so it wouldn't matter, well that seems like an excuse and not a valid reason.

If that really was the teams logic, we are seeing it's flaws today. The Flames are still a bad team and we are seeing these contracts are inhibiting progress.

I just think it's a case of falling in love with your own players and valuing per your teams depth chart vs. their value across the league.

Don't agree with your logic either. The Flames had to ice a roster entering the rebuild. Burke/Treliving still have to try and ice something entertaining for the paying fans, I'm not sure you really seem to get that part. We weren't going to go the Buffalo route and ice the worst possible roster, that wasn't an option for our management.

I suppose Treliving could have tried to sign worse players for less money. Is that what you wanted? He also could have tried to sign better players for crazy money. I'm assuming that isn't what you wanted either.

How much are these contracts really holding us back? Doesn't seem like we're that handcuffed at all as of yet. The whole thing is a bit overblown IMO. In the grand scheme of things we've got one bad contract right now (Wideman) that I still think could be moveable and then a few middling contracts that are meh and moveable. That's fine. I don't really see the "inhibiting progress" that you are arguing for.

[Illuminaughty]

You have to get to the cap floor, you can't just put in all youth an expect it all to work out. You need some veterans to make it easier for your young guys to develop. You also have to signs these veterans and lets face it, not every veteran player wants to be that stop gap for a re-building team, I know I'd want to be on a winning team if I was a player. So to get these veterans you likely have to over pay in money and term as an incentive to get them to stay through these re-building years.

It's not pretty but it's the nature of the beast for a re-building small market team.

[calumniate]

Stajan sure takes a lot of penalties it seems

[killer_carlson]

I was furious at the Stajan contract when we signed it, then Burke gave me a different perspective on it.

He said that you need veteran centers to shelter the minutes for the younger guys. He said you'll ruin a young center by feeding them to dominant centers too early in their career. So in order to develop a guy like Monahan, you need Stajans and Backlunds to face off against Kopitar, Getzlaf, Thornton.

The problem is that Stajan was given 1 year too many. The good thing is that Monahan developed faster than expected.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

Don't agree with your logic either. The Flames had to ice a roster entering the rebuild. Burke/Treliving still have to try and ice something entertaining for the paying fans, I'm not sure you really seem to get that part. We weren't going to go the Buffalo route and ice the worst possible roster, that wasn't an option for our management.

I suppose Treliving could have tried to sign worse players for less money. Is that what you wanted? He also could have tried to sign better players for crazy money. I'm assuming that isn't what you wanted either.

How much are these contracts really holding us back? Doesn't seem like we're that handcuffed at all as of yet. The whole thing is a bit overblown IMO. In the grand scheme of things we've got one bad contract right now (Wideman) that I still think could be moveable and then a few middling contracts that are meh and moveable. That's fine. I don't really see the "inhibiting progress" that you are arguing for.

Not sure which contracts you are trying to rationalize. I agree it's not a gigantic problem but current regime has signed some bad contracts. In almost all cases, they were bad from the start.

IMO the cap floor is an ever worse rationalization for multi year deals.

Are these contracts really inhibiting progress? Guess I don't really know but we are going to be full against the cap next year without making any improvements. I dont share the view that many of these guys are moveable. Guys like Wideman for example.

Just my opinion. Flames have no business being a cap team at this stage.