FlamesNation Mailbag – September 4th, 2017

After a brief hiatus, the mailbag is back.

The reason it disappeared was because August is typically the worst hockey month of the year. The only moves made by the team were signing Brett Kulak to a small money deal, which many expected, and adding Tanner Glass on a PTO. The biggest stories were speculation; Jaromir Jagr’s potential signing and Sam Bennett’s potential contract details. We’ve mostly been keeping our minds off hockey, but with camp looming and business left undone, it’s time to get back into the thick of things.

There’s a sense of cautious optimism in the air, and that’s not unexpected. It’s been a long time, nearly a decade, since the team has signaled that they’re going for it and have actually made the moves to cash the cheque their mouth wrote. With a lot of good heading the Flames’ way, it’s natural that there might be some doubt even in the hearts of the biggest believers. Has the team really addressed their needs? Are the solutions adequate? What more can they do?

I’ll start with Eddie, because optimism is fun. Lack certainly has had his struggles in Carolina, as Bill Peters will explicitly point out, but some goalie-centric minds have seen those difficulties as a coaching issue:

Same minds see Calgary as a potential area where Lack can change his game and improve:

Basically, there’s hope for Lack. The fail-safe is that, should those lousy performances continue, there’s always the option of burying him and calling up one of Gillies/Rittich/Parsons to serve as the #2. His contract expires after next year so it won’t be a long term pain. Taken all together, you shouldn’t be nervous about Lack.

Smith is where you should be cautious, and yes, you should definitely be cautious because of his age. Here’s a handy post about how goalies regress as they get older, and it doesn’t look good for Smith. Based on the two models, we might expect him to drop by .004 or .005, which would be a .910 and .909 SV%. The next year, we could expect another drop.

Of course, Smith’s performances at 35 and 34 have more or less bucked this model, remaining mostly consistent during years where he should’ve went far backwards. We can also expect that his stats jump a bit from playing on a non lottery team. But you should still be skeptical that he continues to hold off father time for another year, much less two.

To start, let’s look at the forward group as it currently stands based on last year’s common usage:

13-23-79

19-11-67

10-(93)-??

??-18-36

25, 20

That fourth line LW spot could be filled by Marek Hrivik (a pretty good idea!), Freddie Hamilton (a tried-and-true idea!), or Luke Gazdic (please no). You could bring up a prospect like Klimchuk and see if his 200 foot game translates to the NHL bottom six. Maybe you push Stajan to the wing and start giving Jankowski some reps, or put Janko on the wing and see if he’ll work there. If Lazar starts struggling on the third line, you can drop him down and see if he can succeed with smaller minutes. The fourth line LW is something they’ll likely deal with internally, they have plenty of options.

The third line RW spot is the concern. That line was sunk last year, mostly due to Brouwer boat-anchoring the whole thing. If you want Bennett to really take that next step, he needs a winger that will help instead of hurt him.

On that note, how comfortable do people feel gift wrapping that spot to Curtis Lazar, a player who hasn’t been much of anything at the NHL level? Does Spencer Foo do it for you? Will Shinkaruk or Poirier live up to their potential at that spot? The answers to all of these questions are up in the air, and that’s why we’ve been pushing the Jagr angle. If you can add a reliable 40-50 point scorer to your lineup, you should jump on that opportunity. You can wince at the thought of denying young guys playing time, but what the Flames really do need right now is a stable force in their top nine rather than a question mark. There’s really only one option like Jagr left on the market, and it is Jagr. Alex Chiasson could be a possibility, but that’s running in place for a team that needs to go forward.

The only optimal solution is to have Jagr in the lineup. But Jagr doesn’t happen until Bennett is signed, and if Bennett prices them out (or if they’re unwilling to spend, another possibility), then they’re done. Given the cap space, that seems like it wouldn’t be a concern, but there’s a large chance they look internally to solve that RW vacancy.

Kulak’s only seen 30 NHL games over the past two years, which is not much of a sample size to look at, but it’s been almost entirely positive. His CFrel% is 1.32% with 45.70% o-zone stars, according to naturalstattrick. For a young, third pairing defender, that’s pretty much what you need.

Unless he’s fooled us all, Kulak should be able to hang like he’s done the last two years. Stone isn’t necessarily a great partner (one hopes last season dismal possession results were mostly aninjury-related aberration), but he’s likely much better than Deryk Engelland. Given that he’ll still likely see limited minutes and heavy offensive zone starts, Kulak will be fine.

It’s been two years since this series was published, so here’s a refresher: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

The Flames would fit into that big gainer category, jumping up the CF% by 5.49% since that 2014-15 season, but they didn’t start from a great spot to begin with. That year, the CF% was 44.59CF%, which of course means that they aren’t in a dominant spot now, sitting at 50.53CF% this past year. They’ve certainly improved, but they aren’t in that world beating >52CF% category, the criteria Kent used to identify other big gainers.

From where Kent left off (part five), the Flames have doubled down in spots. Tkachuk has been another draft stud and we still haven’t seen the best of Bennett. Versteeg has been a helpful UFA solutions and there’s potential for one more. Internal development has provided two more NHLers in Ferland and (potentially) Kulak. The Hamonic trade has the potential to be another Dougie trade. And of course, Gulutzan has been a major improvement on Hartley Hockey. The Flames also let a lot of deadweight go this past summer and never waved goodbye, which should also help in pushing things to 52%.

But there are some steps backwards. Signing Brouwer has more or less negated signing Frolik. Lazar is a trade that is unlikely to pay dividends. and blocks the path for other prospects. Successful internal development at the NHL level has yet to be seen for guys like Wotherspoon, Jankowski, Klimchuk, Poirier, Shinkaruk, etc, which leaves question marks at depth positions. We should also wait and see whether Gulutzan can actually push them over the hump or if they’ll stay stagnant at the just over 50% mark.

All in all, they’ve taken major steps forwards and are likely just at the verge of what those four profiled teams achieved. There’s still question marks, but the major parts are all there for the Flames to be among those rebuilding success stories.

To start with Dallin’s question, the best case scenario is that Brouwer isn’t as bad as he was last year. There’s no way they’re salvaging Blackhawks Brouwer or Capitals Brouwer, but if he can be Blues Brouwer and play competent hockey in a bottom six role, that should be workable. You can’t hope for much in a 32 year old who has had poor underlyings for the last few years of his career, but you can hope that he doesn’t continue to get worse.

For the second question, I don’t think a trade is possible. Brouwer would have to have one hell of a bounceback season to get teams interested in swallowing the rest of that contract, even at half retained. Of course, if Brouwer is good enough next year to get teams sniffing around, you’d have to think that it confirms management’s decision to sign him in the first place. That would cement his place here.

I’d personally say Andrew Mangiapane. The kid had a great 20 year old season in the AHL, minus an uncharacteristic struggle period. He doesn’t solve an immediate need for the Flames (the only forward position he doesn’t play is RW), so perhaps he doesn’t make the squad right out of camp, but he’ll certainly establish himself on the radar as call up #1.

However, I think Ryan Lomberg is likely going to be the training camp surprise. Energy guys like him tend to make the best out of training camp (as we discussed in our Slack Sunday post yesterday) and leave an impression on fans and coaches due to their style of play, regardless if they’re putting up numbers. Josh Jooris, Micheal Ferland, and Garnet Hathaway have stuck their foot in the door of the NHL this way, and it’s probably going to work for Lomberg too.

Toronto is a good option, as Kent detailed a few weeks back. They have a lot of RWers tucked away and not a lot of high quality defenders. It’s an opportunity.

But is it a good idea? Likely no. Unless you can get a player like William Nylander or Connor Brown (extremely unlikely in both cases), you’re trading a good AHLer for another good AHLer. There’s no guarantee that these Toronto RWer’s AHL performances will translate to the NHL, which is a major issue if the idea is to get better now. The Flames don’t need any RWer, they need one that can contribute immediately.

If the Flames are considering moving a blue chip D prospect straight across for a forward, they should only do it for an established NHL RW, such as….

Now there’s a great RW option.

But there’s unfortunately no package possible. You’d have to clear cap space, and we’ve already discussed the obvious choice. Sending away any other high cap players are likely steps backwards. If you could somehow figure that hurdle out, you then have to consider that the Bruins would certainly want NHL options back. That likely means Bennett, but they could probably command a better return than just Sam.

So does that mean D prospects? Probably not. The Bruins have their own defensive youth movement, with Brandon Carlo, Charles McAvoy, and Jakub Zboril imminently approaching the NHL. They also drafted three defencemen this past June, including Urho Vaakanainen in the first round. They’re pretty much set. It’s hard to see where any Flames prospect would intrigue them.

One of the issues around trading a D prospect is forgetting that a lot of other teams also have good D prospects, and usually more than one. 15 went in the first 50 picks at the 2017 draft, including two in the top five. The NHL isn’t short of good defensive prospects (or at least teams who perceive that they have good ones- this is a bias that exists everywhere), and the Flames aren’t the only ones hoarding them.