I still think he can be better. Right now we've seen the goals, but I want to see if he can pick up some assists too. I see him more of a 20-20 kind of guy, not a 25-10.
His history agrees with you, but just watching him I don't know if he has that in him as he seems to get impatient with tunnel vision except for like,
one shift where he played some cycle game with I think Backlund. To be honest, even with Glencross gone, Brad's got some work cut out for himself next season with so many forwards and so few spots to give them, assuming the current top 6 (Bouma/Backlund/Jones/Gaudreau/Monahan/Hudler) is intact for at least next year:
Bennett
Byron
Jooris
Colborne
Stajan
Shore
Baertschi
Raymond
Wolf
Bollig
Luckily Granlund is still waiver-eligible next year so, but that's still ten spots
with glencross gone, only eight of which are available. AFAIK none of those guys can be sent down to Stockton without clearing waivers (Bennett can still be sent down to Kingston, but it's highly unlikely for obvious reasons).
...Easy to hope Bollig is one odd man out, but we need to lose one other just to have a 22 man roster, unless you want to run 6 Dmen (which might make sense if callups really become that much more efficient).
...There's always the possibility we don't bring back Wolf, Jooris or Byron, but those guys have shown so much this season in my opinion. Some people are convinced it'll be Sven, but he's the same age Tatar, Nyquist etc were before they finally forced Detroit's hand. I'm not sure it's the right time to give up on this guy as he's STILL one of the more skilled young players we've got.
Raymond brings scoring and speed, but he'll be 30 and isn't part of the long term plan. He's soft on the puck and while that'd be fine for a dominant possession team, it's a mediocre fit for the Flames. I like that he's a Calgarian and probably bleeds a C of Red but it's one of those things where you have to take the emotion out of it and just evaluate it from a business perspective.
Stajan's the other option to move, but I suspect they want to keep at least one veteran center around to help with Bennett's development (unless they feel Backlund is ready for that role). Either way Stajan's term and NTC make him one of the tougher players to move in the off season.
The last option is taking Jones out of the top 6 and moving him, but I imagine Treliving waits until closer to the trade deadline on that one? And we'd probably have to eat some salary there. The main question is "Who earns the top 6 RW role away from Jones". I have a suspicion Jooris might be a great fit there but I don't know as much about hockey as Bob Hartley.
For all we know, we keep Brandon Bollig.
