Expectations vs. reality: How the Flames’ forward depth failed them

There were a lot of errors.

Jaromir Jagr’s signing was supposed to be a boon for the Flames. Yes, he was old; he was also coming off of a 46-point season in which he put up outstanding numbers with younger players. At the time, I forecasted a top nine that looked as such:

So, what happened? Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, and Matthew Tkachuk all had career years. That’s the major upside to this mess: the Flames’ best (and still rather young) players were their best players.

Mikael Backlund faltered some – he didn’t have another 20-goal year, but his points totals were roughly in line with what he scored the previous two seasons – and the 3M line wasn’t as impressive as it had been the season before. Michael Frolik got hit with a below career average shooting percentage, and a broken jaw probably didn’t help matters, either; that said, there’s reasonable expectation he could bounce back next season, as little as it means to this past season’s failures at forward.

Then, there’s everyone else. Micheal Ferland was outstanding until he wasn’t; he’s still a great player, but you want more out of a top line forward (see: Gaudreau, Monahan). Sam Bennett still has yet to take that next step forward, which impacted the third line pretty harshly: what could have been formidable based on Bennett’s original career projections has still yet to materialize.

Kris Versteeg, who scored 37 points the previous year and was something of a powerplay specialist, got hurt. Jagr was hurt. And so, the Flames instead ended up with:

Again: three guys lived up to their potential. Backlund didn’t fall too far from it, while Ferland was adequate, but not exceptional. If Frolik’s luck had swung the other way, that’s still a half decent top six group.

But the third line could never recover from its expected potential. Mark Jankowski had a solid rookie season, but not one good enough for a team already reeling with failed possibilities at forward. And Garnet Hathaway may be able to score in the AHL, but in the NHL, he simply does not belong on a third line. Replace him with Troy Brouwer, maybe, but Brouwer’s days of hovering around 40-point seasons are clearly over. The Flames’ depth was instantly decimated by a vastly underperforming and inadequate third line.

What happened was the Flames loaded up their defensive group, then crossed their fingers and prayed for the best at forward, their lone move being to sign a then-45-year-old man just before the season started for insurance. “Hoping everything turns out okay” and nothing more resulted in half of a top nine that did not turn out okay, and with it, one of the lowest scoring teams across the NHL.

The Flames led in a lot of offensive metrics, according to Natural Stat Trick: corsi for, shots for, scoring chances for, high danger corsi events for. Their worst was shots for, at sixth best in the league. But they didn’t have the shooting percentage to match: partly due to, yes, poor luck, but also partly due to a lower quality cast of supporting characters. And so, no goals.

The Flames had an answer when Bennett didn’t meet expectations: Jankowski. They had no answer when Versteeg went down. They had no answer when Jagr went down. Nobody in the fourth line group, from Brouwer to Curtis Lazar, was adequate enough to take another step forward and plug the holes forming.

The last impact forward the Flames added probably would be Tkachuk, in the 2016 NHL draft.

If they hope things turn around for the 2018-19 season, they’ve got to bring in someone else. Maybe even two somebody elses, to prepare for all that could go wrong. Because they didn’t do that this past season, and look what happened. And while you hope this past year was an anomaly, and their shooting percentage will improve to at least average levels again next year, that isn’t something one can count on, and if the 2017-18 season taught us anything, it’s better to be safe than sorry.