FlamesNation Mailbag: Preseason wrap-up, looking forward
5 years ago
With the schedule clear and the cuts coming, it’s beginning to look a lot like hockey season around here. Let’s revisit the preseason one last time before we jump into the regular season.
Real hockey on Wednesday, folks!
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Bill writes:
One of the key assumptions is balanced TOI. It is well documented that the Flames rode Gaudreau-Monahan like rented mules. By year’s end, they were beaten up and out of gas. The Flames lost most of their games in the last 10 minutes of the third period. With a balanced attack over 4 lines, the Flames will win more games in the third period and have more legs for the final push to and into the playoffs.If [and it’s a big ‘if’], the Flames can rank #10 or better in scoring, they will make the second round of the playoffs…maybe into the third round.It would be interesting to see what your readers are predicting.
LW (G) C (G) RW (G) total goals TOI Gaudreau (35) Monahan (40) Neal (25) 100 17 Frolik (10) Backlund (20) Lindholm (15) 45 16 Tkachuk (30) Jankowski (25) Bennett (20) 75 17 Dube (15) Ryan (10) Czarnik (10) 35 10 Total: 255 goals, 10th in the league based on 2017-18
These projections consider forwards only, but compare them to total goals from 2017-18, which means they’re stacking up against forwards and defenders. Example: Tampa Bay’s forwards were the most productive and only managed 242 goals. No matter, we’ll move some of the goals back to the defence: the Flames’ forward:defence goal ratio was 176:40, so about 80:20. Let’s assume that holds.
The first line looks just about right. One hundred may be up there (80 when you factor in defence), but the most productive first line the Flames have had during the Gaudreau-Monahan era has been with Jiri Hudler in 2014-15, which produced 93 goals. Maybe Sean Monahan hitting 40 is outlandish, but dare to dream. Even at worst, it seems within reason that that line could hit somewhere between 80 to 90 total goals if nothing goes wrong.
The second and fourth lines look about what you can expect from those lines. I think Michael Frolik and Derek Ryan hit a bit more than 10 goals, and Dillon Dube gets a bit fewer than 15, but otherwise realistic.
The third line is the ambitious one. You have all three players hitting career highs, which is fair given that they’re all young, but to the tune of 75 goals (60 with defence)? Only five three-man units hit 60 goals in AS last year, according to Corsica. None of them were any team’s third line.
Also the reliance on equal TOI distribution is going to make the entire thing fall apart. Bill Peters made it clear in the preseason that he isn’t going to roll four lines. Maybe that doesn’t hold in the regular season, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
I would stay away from Carey Price.
That statement is absurd on its own face, so let’s unpack it. Carey Price has been bad recently. Obviously, Price’s .900 SV% is an aberration from his usual greatness, and part of that is certainly because he’s on a bad team, has had major recent injury history, and is 31.
And at $10.5M per year until he’s 38, that’s a pretty dangerous gamble. If he bounces back, you do have the best goalie in the league. But how certain can we be that he bounces back and remains that goalie for the duration of his contract? Injuries and age can ruin a great goalie quickly, and that’s starting to happen with Price. He’ll start to underperform his salary sooner rather than later.
Being that he enjoys the reputation as the best goalie in the league, it’s probably going to cost a fortune to pry him out of Montreal (then again, the PK Subban, Alex Galchenyuk, and Max Pacioretty trades say otherwise). Is that worth it for a goalie you’re stuck with for a long period of decline?
The next best thing is Sergei Bobrovsky, who will likely cost ~$9M in a year when the Flames have to extend Matthew Tkachuk. Likely impossible, unless Treliving manages to move out a lot of the salary he built up this previous offseason.
Here are the goalies (and their teams, ages, 2017-18 NHL GP and SV%) who face a strong chance of being on waivers today:
- Anton Forsberg (Chicago, 25, 35GP, .908%)
- Curtis McElhinney (Toronto, 35, 18GP, .934%)
- Calvin Pickard (Toronto, 26, 1GP, .857%)
- Garret Sparks (Toronto, 25, 0 GP, n/a)
- Eddie Lack (New Jersey, 30, 8 GP, .854%)
Forever a Flame McElhinney looks to be the runaway choice should he hit waivers, given his impressive late career run. He’s had a 0.925 SV% in backup duties since 2016-17, and a 0.915 SV% since 2014-15 despite being a .902 SV% goalie in the years prior to that. He’s a risky pick for a backup job given his age and certain regression, but the best of the bunch. Toronto likely knows this too, however.
Otherwise, pick your poison: the rest of these goalies are unspectacular selections. Forsberg has yet to translate AHL success to NHL success, ditto Sparks, who hasn’t played in the league in two seasons. Pickard falls into the same territory: looked to be a gem in 2015-16, can barely get an NHL appearance now. We know what Eddie Lack is.
All of these goalies are likely to be the same or worse than David Rittich or Jon Gillies. You really shouldn’t file a claim for any of them, if only because it puts seven goalies in the pros.
Brett Kulak has been waived, which sucks for him, but it’s the business. Juuso Valimaki played his way onto the team. The preseason being what it is, but Valimaki put up points and generally looked better with each passing game. He’s earned the spot, Kulak did not. That’s what camp is for.
Juuso will get his nine-game audition. The Flames know what they have in Kulak – steady, but replaceable – and are just getting to know Valimaki. If the kid can translate his junior performances to the NHL, he’ll blow your mind. Is being one year closer to RFA status really that important if he’s blowing things up as a rookie?
If he doesn’t do any of that, oh well, back to Kulak. Perhaps nine games isn’t enough to judge whether or not the Flames would be better over the remaining 73 games with Kulak or Valimaki (the more important milestone is 41 games, when Valimaki would become a year closer to UFA status), but the Flames should be fine whoever makes it. If Valimaki sticks, they have an emerging lethal threat on the blueline for years to come. If it’s Kulak, they have a steady blueliner who can easily be flipped for an asset of some kind (unless he’s claimed, in which case, uh-oh).
Yes, Michael Stone is going to be on the team ahead of Rasmus Andersson, barring any surprising waivers news. The Flames handcuffed themselves to Stone in the 2017 offseason, and this is the consequence.
The obvious answer is a trade, although I think a Stone trade is out of the question. He’s a $3.5M dollar man with a year left on his contract that doesn’t do much outside of the ~12 minutes he sees per night. What team is aching for that? Every team has hit the salary floor, so that’s out the window. Never count out the random bad decisions GMs make, but if Stone was wanted, he’d be gone.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t know. Dalton Prout seems to be the popcorn eater this season, so Stone can’t stay in the box unless the Flames are rolling 8D (they aren’t, probably). Andersson has to play his way onto the team from the AHL, although he did that last season, too. An injury is likely to pop up some time this season so that’s Rasmus’ time to make his name.
I think that’s the succession plan. As already covered, Valimaki is probably replacing Kulak this season, and the Flames should move on from Stone as soon as possible to bring Andersson to the NHL.
Oliver Kylington is the tricky piece. Both TJ Brodie and Travis Hamonic go UFA in 2020, and they’ll both be 30 years old by then. Kylington will be a mere 23 and just coming off his first contract, which is around the time you expect a defenceman to reach the NHL. The Flames could potentially keep one of Brodie or Hamonic, although certainly not both. Kylington seems to fill in at one of those spots, but the question will be whether he can play his off side full time. If Brodie can do it, can Kylington?
I don’t think the Flames will look to move on from Kylington based on righty-lefty preference. He’s been getting better year over year and he could be something else if he reaches his full potential. They also have zero defensive depth behind him. If you think back to our top 20 prospects list, we had Kylington as the fifth best prospect. The next closest blueliner was No One. The Flames don’t actually have another right-handed defenceman in their prospect pool. If they need another defender up, they really have no other option than Kylington.
If we stay purely focused on prospects, the Flames could draft a defenceman in the 2019 first round, but it’s a dangerous bet to assume that he’ll be ready to take an NHL top four spot by 2020. They’ll likely find a way for Kylington to contribute by then. He may spend the majority of his season in Stockton again, but they are likely going to find a way for him to get involved in Calgary before his ELC runs out.
The easy answer is Dube. Early line projections have him on the third line with Ryan and Frolik. He saw PP and PK time in the more significant preseason games which also kind of gives you a hint about what he’ll be allowed to do this season.
Dube’s great 2017-18 campaign and bonkers 2018 preseason has seemingly resulted in a long leash from management, so watch for him to make the most of that.
If Dube has the long leash, guess who has the short one.
Bennett was obviously never going to usurp Johnny Gaudreau and Tkachuk for LW spots #1 and #2, but he seemed to have a steady grasp on LW #3. If a 20-year-old rookie with six AHL games stole his spot, well that’s a problem.
He also has to feel claustrophobic because of Andrew Mangiapane, too. Mangiapane had a better preseason than Bennett. Sam was fine, no doubt (reminder that we’ve been fooled by Preseason Sam Bennett before), but Mangiapane was better. If he’s made the team, as Sunday’s waiver transactions suggest, he should be on the ice and not in the press box.
The truth is that, even though they are both the same age (Mangiapane is actually a few months older) and that Bennett has way more NHL experience than Mangiapane, the Flames know what Bennett is. He has 250 NHL games under his belt. They can’t wait forever for him to break out, and if it’s denying another player who has at least some impressive pro success, he has to be moved out of the way. If it comes via trade, well that’s just how it is.
Perhaps Bennett is a victim of familiarity breeding contempt. Perhaps he’s just a bad player that the club can afford to move on from. Or perhaps he still has something left in the tank and he’ll prove it this year. Whatever the case, he has a tough path ahead to move up the rotation and an impressive young winger snapping at his heels. He’s in trouble, and if nothing improves, he’s the first to go.
Yes.
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