Thoughts on this seasons Flames

[Double Dion]

Any line with Pospisil and Lomberg on it is well on its way to becoming my favourite line in the history of everything.

Especially knowing how next season is bound to go.

I'm really high on Pospisil as a center. I just really want to see what he looks like there. He's so strong defensively and has enough pace to be deep and still get into the play offensively. I'd like to see if he could be our 3C of the future. I'd also like to see if Zary can be a 2C.

 

[Yepthatsme]

your main driver of maintained or increased scoring seems to be 2 pending UFA's (Kuzmenko and Mantha) who should be sold off as soon as the Flames receive an offer that meets their expectations, especially IF they are showing performance like you project.

Mantha scored at a 29 goal pace and went for a second last year, and any team wanting Kuzmenko is going to want to see that his production is back after disappointing last season. I fully expect to see both of them on the roster until March when there can be a bidding war, and I half expect Kuzmenko to not get traded at all if he produces what I think he can. That is plenty of time to boost the rosters offense.

Neither should or would be sold early, because neither will garner a 1st well before the deadline.

 

[Ledge And Dairy]

Honestly think a lot would have to go wrong for Calgary to score less this year. We lost 39 goals off the roster last year combined through Lindholm, Mangiapane, Tanev, Hanifin, Kylington, and Zadorov. Incoming is Kuzmenko, who scored 39 his rookie year and was on pace for 40 with us. Going into his contract year with this being his year to receive his career contract, I expect him to be his best yet. Mantha in Washington on a low scoring team with zero expectations was on pace for 29 goals, yet we should still be able to offer him more ice time and powerplay time than Washington did. Miromanov replaces Hanifin’s 11 I think easy, if he gets a top 4 offensive time his shot alone will get him there. Then we have the goals lost from the rest of the d-core, and I think any of our replacement level guys added should be able to score… 5 goals. A big boost will come from internal growth too, with Zary, Pospisil, Pelletier and Coronato all a year older.

The main driver behind the massive boost will be the powerplay, which after Kuzmenko got situated, operated at 24% from February 1st on. That is a massive performance boost from the 13.9% it was from October through to January 31st, and if continued would be a a main driver for the increased offense. Even with Coleman coming back down, that’s a lot of extra goals.

Yeah I completely disagree with this take. As I said before our powerplay will probably be overall better than last season. That is largely due to Kumenko. But what you are not accounting for is the drop in 5v5 production. With our stripped d-core we are going to have a much harder time just getting it out of our own zone. All you did was count goals scored by individual players but you are not accounting for how those goals were created at all. Hanifin and Tanev did wonders for breaking the puck out and turning the play up ice. There's no world where Miromanov and Bahl and reproduce the transition game those 2 brought.

Also expecting anyone to score at a rate above 15% is just completely unrealistic so if you are expecting 40 goals from Kuzmenko he's probably going to need at least 250 shots on net. Also considering he will probably be traded at or before the deadline he will probably only get around 25 goals with us max

 

[Rubi]

I'll post this just in case anyone here owns a Dube jersey..

https://x.com/i/web/status/1828531137658204322

 

[Yepthatsme]

Yeah I completely disagree with this take. As I said before our powerplay will probably be overall better than last season. That is largely due to Kumenko. But what you are not accounting for is the drop in 5v5 production. With our stripped d-core we are going to have a much harder time just getting it out of our own zone. All you did was count goals scored by individual players but you are not accounting for how those goals were created at all. Hanifin and Tanev did wonders for breaking the puck out and turning the play up ice. There's no world where Miromanov and Bahl and reproduce the transition game those 2 brought.

Also expecting anyone to score at a rate above 15% is just completely unrealistic so if you are expecting 40 goals from Kuzmenko he's probably going to need at least 250 shots on net. Also considering he will probably be traded at or before the deadline he will probably only get around 25 goals with us max

We will undoubtedly get pinned in our zone a lot more, that is without a doubt true, but the only defenseman we lost with an active hand in creating offense was Hanifin. We were never a team with a high flying breakout or a reliance in creating offense off the rush, our breakout for all intents and purposes is relatively simplistic, so losing great first pass options will hurt far less than your making it out to be. Most of where our offense from the back end comes in was activating to join the rush and create odd man opportunities, or leaving the blue line for offensive support in the zone. Only Hanifin took an active part in that for the most part of our lost defenseman, and his contributions will be missed for spreading out opposing defenses.

Tanev had 14 assists on the year and Kylington 5, both are practically replacement level totals for their ice time. Tanev was a big part of preventing chances and putting an end to sustained zone time, but as far as zone clearances, neither he nor Kylington had any ++ qualities for creating offense the opposite direction. Not to mention Andersson getting to be “the guy” on his pair with him and Weegar likely separated will also be a big boost to him, as he will now get to lean into the offensive role on his pair again.

I’d also say you’re sleeping on Miromanov, coming off a terrible ACL injury he put up respectable points all the while having a low on ice shooting percentage. Given a full camp and a forced increased role, I think he will add a pretty unique aspect to our back end offensively.

As per our forwards, Kuzmenko doesn’t need to hit 40. I’d say he has a legitimate chance at leading our forwards in goal scoring, and is a relatively safe bet for 30, so that easily replaces Lindholm’s poor 15 goal pace from last year. Maybe Mantha doesn’t get 29, but he’s paced for atleast 20 goals every single season in his 9 year career except for 1, so another easy bet to replace Mangiapane’s 14. Then having Coronato, Pelletier, Zary, Pospisil all being a year older, and an improved offense seems likely. I’m not suggesting we are about to start Harlem globe trotting teams, but between adding better goal scorers (and better creaters in the case of Kuzmenko),youth development in our forwards, and a seemingly primed boost to our powerplay totals, going from a slightly below average offense to a slightly above average offense seems likely injury pending.

 

[Yepthatsme]

Instead of going back and forth about why our offense will be worse or better, why don’t we just post goal and point totals for the projected lineup? I’ll start:
Huberdeau (15G, 65p)
Zary (18G, 50p)
Sharangovich (32G, 60p)

Mantha (25G, 50p)
Kadri (28G, 75p)
Kuzmenko (35G, 80p)

Coronato (15G, 40p)
Backlund (15G, 45p)
Coleman (22G, 45p)

Pelletier (7G, 25p)
Pospisil (10G, 30p)
Lomberg (7g, 20p)

Weegar (15g, 50p)
Miromanov (13G, 45p)
Andersson (9G, 40p)
Bahl (5G, 25p)
Bean (5G, 25p)
The rest: 4G

So a completely healthy 280, dropping down to 265-270 after injuries. Coming off the belief that Mantha and Kuzmenko will be playing like crazy for their “last big contract of their careers” year, but other than that and a pretty high belief in Miro and a slight bounce back from Huberdeau, relatively realistic projections. I’m low on Coleman and Weegar falling back down to Earth (although still above average), Kadri’s goal totals slightly falling despite some extra help, and Zary’s total staying flat with the increase in responsibility.

 

[Backlund]

80 points for Kuzmenko is extremely optimistic

 

[Ledge And Dairy]

We will undoubtedly get pinned in our zone a lot more, that is without a doubt true, but the only defenseman we lost with an active hand in creating offense was Hanifin. We were never a team with a high flying breakout or a reliance in creating offense off the rush, our breakout for all intents and purposes is relatively simplistic, so losing great first pass options will hurt far less than your making it out to be. Most of where our offense from the back end comes in was activating to join the rush and create odd man opportunities, or leaving the blue line for offensive support in the zone. Only Hanifin took an active part in that for the most part of our lost defenseman, and his contributions will be missed for spreading out opposing defenses.

Tanev had 14 assists on the year and Kylington 5, both are practically replacement level totals for their ice time. Tanev was a big part of preventing chances and putting an end to sustained zone time, but as far as zone clearances, neither he nor Kylington had any ++ qualities for creating offense the opposite direction. Not to mention Andersson getting to be “the guy” on his pair with him and Weegar likely separated will also be a big boost to him, as he will now get to lean into the offensive role on his pair again.

I’d also say you’re sleeping on Miromanov, coming off a terrible ACL injury he put up respectable points all the while having a low on ice shooting percentage. Given a full camp and a forced increased role, I think he will add a pretty unique aspect to our back end offensively.

As per our forwards, Kuzmenko doesn’t need to hit 40. I’d say he has a legitimate chance at leading our forwards in goal scoring, and is a relatively safe bet for 30, so that easily replaces Lindholm’s poor 15 goal pace from last year. Maybe Mantha doesn’t get 29, but he’s paced for atleast 20 goals every single season in his 9 year career except for 1, so another easy bet to replace Mangiapane’s 14. Then having Coronato, Pelletier, Zary, Pospisil all being a year older, and an improved offense seems likely. I’m not suggesting we are about to start Harlem globe trotting teams, but between adding better goal scorers (and better creaters in the case of Kuzmenko),youth development in our forwards, and a seemingly primed boost to our powerplay totals, going from a slightly below average offense to a slightly above average offense seems likely injury pending.

No we weren't a high flying rush team but we were a team, like Carolina, that heavily relied on possession. And that possession was always run through the defense. Create turnovers at the blue line, regroup and go up ice. Hanifin lead our team almost every year in shot attempts. I'm not denying that he did shoot a lot but you are vastly undervaluing what Tanev did to set up offense too. Tanev is nothing like a Ben Chiarot or Eric Gudbranson. Those guys are fine defensively but they have zero ability to break out of the zone and very often just ice the puck or turn possession back over. Tanev was very good at preventing opposing offense but then also tuning that into sustained possession.

I don't think I'm sleeping on Miromanov at all. He will be fine but if you think he compares anywhere close to what Tanev or Hanfin provided in terms of creating possession to control the offense you are dead wrong. I think 20-25 points from him is well within reason, especially if he is paired with Weegar.

If Kuzmenko scores 30 with us before he is traded at least half of them will probably be from the man advantage. Again I have no doubt our powerplay will improve this year. But I think you are vastly overvaluing our 5v5 play. 2 years ago (22/23) all but 2 of our 29 different players on our roster had the majority of their EV strength zone starts in the offensive zone, those 2 players (Philips and Zohorna) played a combined 10 games for us. We were ridiculously dominant at 5v5 in terms of possession. Last year we had a lot more turnover on our roster (due to trades) so we had 35 different players over the course of the season. 15 of them were below 50% offensive zone starts. We took a big drop in offensive possession that season with all our trades and will likely be taking another big drop again this year.

I also don't think it's at all fair to compare Kuzmenko to Lindholm here. Kuzmenko was scoring on 24% of the shots he took and Lindholm was scoring on less than 7% of his shots. There is no way Kuzmenko will be able to sustain a number like that over a full season.

Like we can do the math here using ixG from last season with the likely starting 18 (19 because I decided to add Coronato even though I think Pelletier will make the team instead due to waiver exemption)
Kadri = 34.87
Coleman - 28.92/78 = 30.40
Backlund = 23.47
Sharangovich = 22.65
Huberdeau - 19.54/81 = 19.78
Pospisil - 13.57/63 = 17.66
Zary - 11.93/63 = 15.53
Andersson - 9.98/78 = 10.49
Weegar = 9.05
Kuzmenko - 7.79/29 = 22.03
Miromanov - 2.24/20 = 9.18
Rooney - 3.28/33 = 8.15
Pelletier - 0.78/13 = 4.92
Coronato - 6.19/34 = 14.93
Pachal - 1.53/33 = 3.80
Mantha - 14.94/74 = 16.56
Lomberg - 7.02/75 = 7.68
Bahl = 2.37
Bean 3.54/72 = 4.03

Total ixG from these 19 players = 277.55
That's if all 19 players were to play all 82 games (which is not possible). It's just simply not likely that all of them score this many goals. Not everyone is going to play all 82 games. Then if we cut Mantha and Kuzmenko to only 60 games played due to trades that number drops even more. I said in my original post that we would probably score closer to a 3.00 GF/GP instead of 3.09 from this most recent season. That's about 246 total goals, instead of the 253 we scored last year.

 

[Ledge And Dairy]

Instead of going back and forth about why our offense will be worse or better, why don’t we just post goal and point totals for the projected lineup? I’ll start:
Huberdeau (15G, 65p)
Zary (18G, 50p)
Sharangovich (32G, 60p)

Mantha (25G, 50p)
Kadri (28G, 75p)
Kuzmenko (35G, 80p)

Coronato (15G, 40p)
Backlund (15G, 45p)
Coleman (22G, 45p)

Pelletier (7G, 25p)
Pospisil (10G, 30p)
Lomberg (7g, 20p)

Weegar (15g, 50p)
Miromanov (13G, 45p)
Andersson (9G, 40p)
Bahl (5G, 25p)
Bean (5G, 25p)
The rest: 4G

So a completely healthy 280, dropping down to 265-270 after injuries. Coming off the belief that Mantha and Kuzmenko will be playing like crazy for their “last big contract of their careers” year, but other than that and a pretty high belief in Miro and a slight bounce back from Huberdeau, relatively realistic projections. I’m low on Coleman and Weegar falling back down to Earth (although still above average), Kadri’s goal totals slightly falling despite some extra help, and Zary’s total staying flat with the increase in responsibility.

An expectation of 280 goals for is just not at all realistic. That would have ranked us 6th last year and clearly in contender status of scoring. You will have to chop at least 30-40 goals off here somewhere to make it at all realistic. Also 80 points for Kuzmenko and 45 for Miromanov is nuts.

 

[Yepthatsme]

No we weren't a high flying rush team but we were a team, like Carolina, that heavily relied on possession. And that possession was always run through the defense. Create turnovers at the blue line, regroup and go up ice. Hanifin lead our team almost every year in shot attempts. I'm not denying that he did shoot a lot but you are vastly undervaluing what Tanev did to set up offense too. Tanev is nothing like a Ben Chiarot or Eric Gudbranson. Those guys are fine defensively but they have zero ability to break out of the zone and very often just ice the puck or turn possession back over. Tanev was very good at preventing opposing offense but then also tuning that into sustained possession.

I don't think I'm sleeping on Miromanov at all. He will be fine but if you think he compares anywhere close to what Tanev or Hanfin provided in terms of creating possession to control the offense you are dead wrong. I think 20-25 points from him is well within reason, especially if he is paired with Weegar.

If Kuzmenko scores 30 with us before he is traded at least half of them will probably be from the man advantage. Again I have no doubt our powerplay will improve this year. But I think you are vastly overvaluing our 5v5 play. 2 years ago (22/23) all but 2 of our 29 different players on our roster had the majority of their EV strength zone starts in the offensive zone, those 2 players (Philips and Zohorna) played a combined 10 games for us. We were ridiculously dominant at 5v5 in terms of possession. Last year we had a lot more turnover on our roster (due to trades) so we had 35 different players over the course of the season. 15 of them were below 50% offensive zone starts. We took a big drop in offensive possession that season with all our trades and will likely be taking another big drop again this year.

I also don't think it's at all fair to compare Kuzmenko to Lindholm here. Kuzmenko was scoring on 24% of the shots he took and Lindholm was scoring on less than 7% of his shots. There is no way Kuzmenko will be able to sustain a number like that over a full season.

Like we can do the math here using ixG from last season with the likely starting 18 (19 because I decided to add Coronato even though I think Pelletier will make the team instead due to waiver exemption)
Kadri = 34.87
Coleman - 28.92/78 = 30.40
Backlund = 23.47
Sharangovich = 22.65
Huberdeau - 19.54/81 = 19.78
Pospisil - 13.57/63 = 17.66
Zary - 11.93/63 = 15.53
Andersson - 9.98/78 = 10.49
Weegar = 9.05
Kuzmenko - 7.79/29 = 22.03
Miromanov - 2.24/20 = 9.18
Rooney - 3.28/33 = 8.15
Pelletier - 0.78/13 = 4.92
Coronato - 6.19/34 = 14.93
Pachal - 1.53/33 = 3.80
Mantha - 14.94/74 = 16.56
Lomberg - 7.02/75 = 7.68
Bahl = 2.37
Bean 3.54/72 = 4.03

Total ixG from these 19 players = 277.55
That's if all 19 players were to play all 82 games (which is not possible). It's just simply not likely that all of them score this many goals. Not everyone is going to play all 82 games. Then if we cut Mantha and Kuzmenko to only 60 games played due to trades that number drops even more. I said in my original post that we would probably score closer to a 3.00 GF/GP instead of 3.09 from this most recent season. That's about 246 total goals, instead of the 253 we scored last year.

An expectation of 280 goals for is just not at all realistic. That would have ranked us 6th last year and clearly in contender status of scoring. You will have to chop at least 30-40 goals off here somewhere to make it at all realistic. Also 80 points for Kuzmenko and 45 for Miromanov is nuts.

I think my favorite part of all this so far has been you adding up the iXG to exactly what my first prediction was, then saying why you think it’s completely unreasonable. The cumulative total of our iXG is already 280, without the added effect of a more offensive environment, a better powerplay, and progression of our young players included. Your numbers already seem to dictate we will likely score more goals, yet you used that as a detractor?

You didn’t read my post well, I already included man games lost bringing us down to about 265-270 which seems realistic for this roster. Trades will also give increased roles to other players so it’s not like those goals are completely lost. You also used 6th place to represent some sort of rarified air obtained through a massive jump that is unattainable to us (you’re right we won’t to around top 5 though), but the difference between 10th and 19th (us) in the NHL was a whopping 13 goals. Not a Herculean leap to once again just say we might have an above average offense this year.

Also Kuzmenko potted 74 points in his rookie season, and gave us a 71 point pace despite 4 points in his first 9 games or 8 in his first 18. You think it’s crazy he beats those totals by 6 points and 9 points respectively, after realistically given the keys to our offense this year. Miro I’m operating on a hunch, he’s put up insanely good offensive stats in the AHL, and I think we just saw him scrape the surface coming back from injury. He already had a 29 point pace after missing a year and a half of hockey, so once again your hyperbole calling a jump in points after what he’s went through nuts is something.

 

[Ledge And Dairy]

I think my favorite part of all this so far has been you adding up the iXG to exactly what my first prediction was, then saying why you think it’s completely unreasonable. The cumulative total of our iXG is already 280, without the added effect of a more offensive environment, a better powerplay, and progression of our young players included. Your numbers already seem to dictate we will likely score more goals, yet you used that as a detractor?

You didn’t read my post well, I already included man games lost bringing us down to about 265-270 which seems realistic for this roster. Trades will also give increased roles to other players so it’s not like those goals are completely lost. You also used 6th place to represent some sort of rarified air obtained through a massive jump that is unattainable to us (you’re right we won’t to around top 5 though), but the difference between 10th and 19th (us) in the NHL was a whopping 13 goals. Not a Herculean leap to once again just say we might have an above average offense this year.

Also Kuzmenko potted 74 points in his rookie season, and gave us a 71 point pace despite 4 points in his first 9 games or 8 in his first 18. You think it’s crazy he beats those totals by 6 points and 9 points respectively, after realistically given the keys to our offense this year. Miro I’m operating on a hunch, he’s put up insanely good offensive stats in the AHL, and I think we just saw him scrape the surface coming back from injury. He already had a 29 point pace after missing a year and a half of hockey, so once again your hyperbole calling a jump in points after what he’s went through nuts is something.

Yes because that assumed 19/18 players played a full 82 games. Again that is literally impossible since only 18 players can play in any game. On top of that is completely unrealistic to expect 18 players to play all 82 games. Reality is it will be more like 5 players play all 82 and some will play as low as 45.

Powerplay ice time is about 20% of 5v5 ice time. You are really not factoring in how much worse our 5v5 play will be. Last year we had 167 5v5 GF and 44 PP GF. Even if that PP production increases to somewhere between 50 and 55 we will probably have less than 150 5v5 GF.

Kuzmenko won't be in Calgary for a full 82 games, he will be moved before the deadline. So even if he paces 80 points (which is probably a bit high) he will probably only get like 50-60 max with us.

 

[DomBarr]

Instead of going back and forth about why our offense will be worse or better, why don’t we just post goal and point totals for the projected lineup? I’ll start:
Huberdeau (15G, 65p)
Zary (18G, 50p)
Sharangovich (32G, 60p)

Mantha (25G, 50p)
Kadri (28G, 75p)
Kuzmenko (35G, 80p)

Coronato (15G, 40p)
Backlund (15G, 45p)
Coleman (22G, 45p)

Pelletier (7G, 25p)
Pospisil (10G, 30p)
Lomberg (7g, 20p)

Weegar (15g, 50p)
Miromanov (13G, 45p)
Andersson (9G, 40p)
Bahl (5G, 25p)
Bean (5G, 25p)
The rest: 4G

So a completely healthy 280, dropping down to 265-270 after injuries. Coming off the belief that Mantha and Kuzmenko will be playing like crazy for their “last big contract of their careers” year, but other than that and a pretty high belief in Miro and a slight bounce back from Huberdeau, relatively realistic projections. I’m low on Coleman and Weegar falling back down to Earth (although still above average), Kadri’s goal totals slightly falling despite some extra help, and Zary’s total staying flat with the increase in responsibility.

I am not going to look at stat pages to not agree with your goal scoring estimates as a lot of your estimates seem reasonable however..
Sharangovich is more likely to score 20 than 30 so make it 25 so - 7 g
Mantha regresses to norm is traded in January for picks and only scores 10 for Calgary so -15g
Kuzmenko is traded in Feb and only scores 25 so -10g
Coleman regresses back to career norm lets say 17 g so -5 g

the skill traded out and goals lost because of it are not replaced.
So that takes it from 280 to 243 and realistically I can't see this team breaking 240 because of the overall reduction in skill

 

[Nanuuk]

It’s an extremely weird group to say this about, but I think this season comes down to 3 players: Miromanov, Bahl, and Wolf.

The offense year over in theory should be much better. Last years Kuzmenko was a better producer than last years Lindholm. Last years Mantha was a much, much better producer (pre-trade) than Mangiapane, and in theory Coronato has more offensive potential than Pospisil. Zary’s a year older, and in 2024 Kadri was point per game + and Huberdeau started to regain some of his offense. It’s stopping goals that will be the problem, which is where those aforementioned 3 come in.

Miromanov gets slept on a lot here. He, like Kylington, missed over a year of hockey before coming back, and his first game with us was his 10th in any league since coming back. The Miromanov we saw last year likely wasn’t the Miromanov we see this year, and he wasn’t bad at all last year.

Bahl is interesting, because he has stretches where he would be a force but he struggled putting it all together. He’s still young for a defenseman, and players with his size profile usually take longer to develop. Our organization and especially Huska excel at developing defenseman, so I have high hopes for him.

Wolf needs no introduction. A typical season for a goalie his age would be stretches where he flashes his potential, but also stretches where he’s very beatable. Nothing is typical though about the level of dominance he’s showed in every other league up to the NHL, so who knows what he shows next season.

If those 3 take steps forward, I think we won’t be nearly as bad as people are hoping for. Not a playoff team, but we’d have to sell a lot of players if we don’t want our pick transferring. If they don’t step up at all from their play last year, we may legitimately be #1 in GA.

I think we our ceiling is challenging for the play-offs for all the reasons that you have mentioned.

I will also add we will not have to suffer through a few losses when the likes of Oesterle were playing. I have a lot more confidence in our defence IF Andersson returns to form.

Our floor is at or below our season of last year. Which is what way too many fans are cheering for.

 

[Ace Rimmer]

80 points for Kuzmenko is extremely optimistic

Sounds like we need an optimism thread.

 

[Fig]

Sounds like we need an optimism thread.

Start one.

 

[Yepthatsme]

Yes because that assumed 19/18 players played a full 82 games. Again that is literally impossible since only 18 players can play in any game. On top of that is completely unrealistic to expect 18 players to play all 82 games. Reality is it will be more like 5 players play all 82 and some will play as low as 45.

Powerplay ice time is about 20% of 5v5 ice time. You are really not factoring in how much worse our 5v5 play will be. Last year we had 167 5v5 GF and 44 PP GF. Even if that PP production increases to somewhere between 50 and 55 we will probably have less than 150 5v5 GF.

Kuzmenko won't be in Calgary for a full 82 games, he will be moved before the deadline. So even if he paces 80 points (which is probably a bit high) he will probably only get like 50-60 max with us.

You also posted stats from how players played last year, and it already says expect more goals. Yet it doesn’t include the effect of adding two legitimate offensive threats for a season adds to a roster. For example, Kuzmenko really turned the corner in March, playing his best hockey by far to finish the year. From March to the end of the season Kadri’s p/60 was 3.31 from his usual 2.84 prior. Sharangovich getting the additional help as well jumped from 2.94 p/60 from 2.31. Even with a majority of the vets mailing it in post trade deadline, Kuzmenko provided a large boost to the players he played with. Same as Mantha, who adds a seriously legitimate shooting threat to whichever line he plays on. Things that aren’t even reflected in the stats you posted, yet it still expects high totals. It also doesn’t include the powerplay, which seems primed for a boost this year with added options and based on how it finished the year prior.

You used the game played argument, but forget to realize the kind of player who play 45 games which are replacement level guys. I.E players who can be replaced and not notice any difference. So you say “but they’ll only play 45 games”, but someone of relatively equal value will play those other 37. Our top of the roster players missed roughly 15-20 games total last year, so yes there will be goals lost but pending some brutal injuries which we haven’t seen since Monahan, the total goals lost won’t be anywhere near 20 let alone 40.

Also I heavily encourage you to post a poll on the main boards on who would add more offense to a team, Chris Tanev or Andrei Kuzmenko. Yes we will get pinned more, and Tanev was a huge loss in starting the play the other way, but you have to understand that an improved forward core has much more of an impact on creating offense than… a defensive defenseman. Like you have to see the logic that Cale Makar getting the puck to Ryan Reaves will be a lot less conducive to gaining offense than Erik Gudbranson rimming the puck along the boards to McDavid, right? Breaking up plays and making a good first pass is important, but unless we are depending on blowing the zone and expecting seem passes or stretch passes on the daily, losing non-offensive defenseman and gaining offensive forwards will increase 5v5 scoring, that’s a pretty simple concept. Given the simplistic nature of our breakout (seriously, when we force a turnover in our zone how often did we do anything other than just head man the puck to a forward), we aren’t losing much to begin with anyways other than our ability to break up zone pressure. As a defenseman myself, I can tell you how much easier a breakout is when you have better forwards on the ice to begin with. To end all this, we also still have Andersson and Weegar who will be likely anchoring two separate pairs, so it’s not like we are bereft of two way defenseman to begin the season either

We added a player who scores 20 in his sleep (almost literally if some people are to be believed), and another guy who’s paced for 40 goals 3/4 of the time he’s been in the league so far. Our powerplay will be better, and we have 3-4 young forwards who will now have another season under their belt for experience. Losing two defenseman who combined for 49 points will not ruin the 5v5 offense as much as a full season of a guy paced for 71 and another who paced for 50 on a much worse offense than ours. Guys like Kuzmenko, Kadri, Sharangovich, and Coleman could all regress to the extreme and I could very easily be wrong, but pretending it’s impossible for us to score more goals is equally as wrong.

 

[DomBarr]

I think we our ceiling is challenging for the play-offs for all the reasons that you have mentioned.

I will also add we will not have to suffer through a few losses when the likes of Oesterle were playing. I have a lot more confidence in our defence IF Andersson returns to form.

Our floor is at or below our season of last year. Which is what way too many fans are cheering for.

The worst thing the can occur with the Flames with their current ownership at this point in time is challenging for or even worse being solidly in a playoff spot at the deadline where ownership will pressure Conroy to fortify the lineup for playoff revenue.
and if you think we are not going to experience losses like there were last year you are over estimating the skill on the Flames D. The new dmen brought in are not better than Tanev, Hanifin, Kylington so while Oesterle is gone outside of Weegar/Andersson the other 4 will provide some entertaining brain farts.
Fans do not want to cheer for the teams to lose but most realize that there is always some pain before things turn around. This team's #1 need right now is high end, game breaking center that only seem to be available in the top 5 picks of a draft and over the next 2 drafts there are some true franchise altering centers at the top of the draft like Hagens, McKenna etc

 

[Double Dion]

I think we our ceiling is challenging for the play-offs for all the reasons that you have mentioned.

I will also add we will not have to suffer through a few losses when the likes of Oesterle were playing. I have a lot more confidence in our defence IF Andersson returns to form.

Our floor is at or below our season of last year. Which is what way too many fans are cheering for.

Really? You think this roster with 2 top 5 defensemen can challenge for the playoffs? I think we're a front half lottery team almost for sure. Only way we get anywhere close to even 20th is if our goaltending is outstanding. We're going to BLEED chances this year. Even if Backlund and Kadri don't decline which could happen at any point.

The only teams we MIGHT be better than in the West are Anaheim, San Jose, Chicago and Seattle. Utah is a vastly improved roster. Everyone else is very clearly better than us.

 

[Fig]

Really? You think this roster with 2 top 5 defensemen can challenge for the playoffs? I think we're a front half lottery team almost for sure. Only way we get anywhere close to even 20th is if our goaltending is outstanding. We're going to BLEED chances this year. Even if Backlund and Kadri don't decline which could happen at any point.

The only teams we MIGHT be better than in the West are Anaheim, San Jose, Chicago and Seattle. Utah is a vastly improved roster. Everyone else is very clearly better than us.

Win it all? No. But in 2014-2015 season, we did do exactly that and somehow hobbled our way past Vancouver in the first round. Sometimes, things can be whacky.

 

[Ace Rimmer]

I mean, who doesn't have confidence in this group?

Weegar - Andersson
Bahl - Miromanov
Hanley - Bean

 

[Some Other Flame]

Weegar-Miromanov
Bahl-Andersson
Bean-Pachal
Solovyov/Hanley

That is likely the worst defensive group the Flames have iced in their history. And there's also a non-zero percent chance that Andersson is traded by the deadline.

Last rebuild had GIordano turn into a norris worthy defenceman overnight while Brodie emerged as a top pairing guy. There's nothing like that this time.

 

[Ledge And Dairy]

You also posted stats from how players played last year, and it already says expect more goals. Yet it doesn’t include the effect of adding two legitimate offensive threats for a season adds to a roster. For example, Kuzmenko really turned the corner in March, playing his best hockey by far to finish the year. From March to the end of the season Kadri’s p/60 was 3.31 from his usual 2.84 prior. Sharangovich getting the additional help as well jumped from 2.94 p/60 from 2.31. Even with a majority of the vets mailing it in post trade deadline, Kuzmenko provided a large boost to the players he played with. Same as Mantha, who adds a seriously legitimate shooting threat to whichever line he plays on. Things that aren’t even reflected in the stats you posted, yet it still expects high totals. It also doesn’t include the powerplay, which seems primed for a boost this year with added options and based on how it finished the year prior.

You used the game played argument, but forget to realize the kind of player who play 45 games which are replacement level guys. I.E players who can be replaced and not notice any difference. So you say “but they’ll only play 45 games”, but someone of relatively equal value will play those other 37. Our top of the roster players missed roughly 15-20 games total last year, so yes there will be goals lost but pending some brutal injuries which we haven’t seen since Monahan, the total goals lost won’t be anywhere near 20 let alone 40.

Also I heavily encourage you to post a poll on the main boards on who would add more offense to a team, Chris Tanev or Andrei Kuzmenko. Yes we will get pinned more, and Tanev was a huge loss in starting the play the other way, but you have to understand that an improved forward core has much more of an impact on creating offense than… a defensive defenseman. Like you have to see the logic that Cale Makar getting the puck to Ryan Reaves will be a lot less conducive to gaining offense than Erik Gudbranson rimming the puck along the boards to McDavid, right? Breaking up plays and making a good first pass is important, but unless we are depending on blowing the zone and expecting seem passes or stretch passes on the daily, losing non-offensive defenseman and gaining offensive forwards will increase 5v5 scoring, that’s a pretty simple concept. Given the simplistic nature of our breakout (seriously, when we force a turnover in our zone how often did we do anything other than just head man the puck to a forward), we aren’t losing much to begin with anyways other than our ability to break up zone pressure. As a defenseman myself, I can tell you how much easier a breakout is when you have better forwards on the ice to begin with. To end all this, we also still have Andersson and Weegar who will be likely anchoring two separate pairs, so it’s not like we are bereft of two way defenseman to begin the season either

We added a player who scores 20 in his sleep (almost literally if some people are to be believed), and another guy who’s paced for 40 goals 3/4 of the time he’s been in the league so far. Our powerplay will be better, and we have 3-4 young forwards who will now have another season under their belt for experience. Losing two defenseman who combined for 49 points will not ruin the 5v5 offense as much as a full season of a guy paced for 71 and another who paced for 50 on a much worse offense than ours. Guys like Kuzmenko, Kadri, Sharangovich, and Coleman could all regress to the extreme and I could very easily be wrong, but pretending it’s impossible for us to score more goals is equally as wrong.

Let me try and explain this a different way. If I remove Kuzmenko, Mantha, Lomberg, etc from the equation and replace them with Lindholm, Mangiapane, Dube, etc. The ixG is actually much higher.
Kuzmenko/Mantha/Lomberg total for 46.27
while Lindholm/Mangiapane/Dube (24.32+25.51+9.13) total for 58.96. Nearly 13 extra expected goals. That's not even factoring in the 4 defensemen we swapped out who should raise it more.

Again I agree our powerplay will be better but I don't think you get how much worse our 5v5 play will be. Sure Kuzmenko is useful in the offensive zone specifically around the net but if we can't get anywhere near there he is borderline useless. We have been a possession style team for like the last 5 years. That style of play is not going to change this season but it will be vastly less dominant without the quality of blue line we had in past seasons. Yes in theory offensive forwards should increase scoring but unfortunately you can't win a 3v5 or 4v5 without superstar talents like McDavid.

I never said it was impossible to score more goals I just say expecting a 15-20 goal increase is not at all realistic. A 7 goal fall off is far more realistic. I think we will be on par with the Senators from last season who has 250 GF and 281 GA

 

[HighLifeMan]

I think the defense actually has far more potential than it's given credit for, although I can understand the pessimism.

Weegar/Miro were absolutely dominant together despite playing some very tough minutes down the stretch. Yes, it wasn't a huge sample size, but they showed some seriously positive signs together.

Bahl and Andersson in theory make a great compliment to one another from a stylistic POV. Bahl has already shown capable of playing tough minutes last year while consistently improving his defensive partners xG%, and if Andersson returns to form (lets be real he struggled last year), then it could be a strong pair.

Third pair? Who really knows, Bean has had NHL success previously in a larger role, and Pachal appears to be a serviceable #6/7.

 

[Nanuuk]

Really? You think this roster with 2 top 5 defensemen can challenge for the playoffs? I think we're a front half lottery team almost for sure. Only way we get anywhere close to even 20th is if our goaltending is outstanding. We're going to BLEED chances this year. Even if Backlund and Kadri don't decline which could happen at any point.

The only teams we MIGHT be better than in the West are Anaheim, San Jose, Chicago and Seattle. Utah is a vastly improved roster. Everyone else is very clearly better than us.

I do. And I am not the only one.

The worst thing the can occur with the Flames with their current ownership at this point in time is challenging for or even worse being solidly in a playoff spot at the deadline where ownership will pressure Conroy to fortify the lineup for playoff revenue.
and if you think we are not going to experience losses like there were last year you are over estimating the skill on the Flames D. The new dmen brought in are not better than Tanev, Hanifin, Kylington so while Oesterle is gone outside of Weegar/Andersson the other 4 will provide some entertaining brain farts.
Fans do not want to cheer for the teams to lose but most realize that there is always some pain before things turn around. This team's #1 need right now is high end, game breaking center that only seem to be available in the top 5 picks of a draft and over the next 2 drafts there are some true franchise altering centers at the top of the draft like Hagens, McKenna etc

It will not be the worst thing if we are up in the standings. It will show the moves that the team has made is wokring.

The new D-men are inexperienced, but not untalented. The zone system will compensate for some talent loss.

Fans do not cheer for their team to lose? Could have fooled me.

 

[Ace Rimmer]

That is likely the worst defensive group the Flames have iced in their history.

You should have a look at the defensive roster from the 97 team. That's what rock bottom looks like.