A: At this point, I’m thinking like St. Louis or Detroit would be the two teams most likely to be interested. The issue with trading Backlund – other than the fact that you’re getting rid of your second best centre – is that you’re not going to get anywhere near fair value in return for what he brings a team.

He out-possesses top-6 players. Theoretically, that makes him a top-6 player. The going return for that type of player is a 2nd or 1st round pick. I’ll say at absolute best he’d bring back a second, but it would likely be something along the lines of a 3rd and a middling prospect. Not worth it. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure a Backlund trade is inevitable now, so resign yourself to the fact that they won’t get fair value. I’m pretty sure this is the next move to go down.

Q: What the hell happened to Janko?

A: Jankowski’s current scoring struggles were talked about in the last edition of our NHLE updates, and what I said at the time is that he needed to increase his shots per game. If he was averaging 3 shots per, the scoring struggles wouldn’t be an issue.

Unfortunately, he isn’t really even close to that marker. Janko’s now dropped back almost to where he was last season (~1.7 SH/G) and is only averaging ~1.9 SH/G. He’s still shooting 30%, too. Because of his talent we might not see that drop below 15% but that still indicates he’s been twice as lucky as he should’ve been. The assists – or lack there of – are starting to worry me as well. The NCAA is 1/4 of the way through their season too, and even though Jankowski is getting PP time and Providence has scored 44 goals, he still only has the one assist. I’m still willing to chalk that up to bad luck but if he can’t get assists long-term it suggests he’s just a peripheral player.

So, in short, nothing “happened” to Jankowski, but he isn’t doing the things he needs to be doing right now.

Q: Chances Monahan goes to the WJC?

A: I can’t see them releasing Monahan to the WJC. It’s painfully obvious that the people around the team expect them to stay as competitive as possible. You’re not going to send away one of your best-scoring forwards if that’s the case. Plus, he’d likely have to go to orientation camp, which is even more time spent where he’s not on the roster.

I would send him to the WJC for sure, but I’m not the one in charge.

Q: Why are fans of the Flames franchise so defensive of Face Punchers, or make excuses for them when they are visibly and quantifiably bad?

A: I don’t think that the love for goons is simply a Calgary thing. The reason people love goons is because, at some primal level, most people enjoy bloodsport. The goods provide.

They’re uniformly terrible at hockey, though, so I wouldn’t want them on my team. I don’t buy that there’s a tangible impact on a game after a fight, but some do.

Q: Why is Sven sitting at all?

A: See the two above answers. Sven makes mistakes (because he’s 21 and he’s supposed to) but in the minds of the Flames brain trust a competitive team can’t make those mistakes. He really should have just played all of these past two seasons in Abbotsford.

Q: I have been curious what is up with Sieloff. How is the development of guys down in Abby, like Granlund, going? Also, what you think is going to happen with all our college prospects this season?

Sieloff is still recovering from surgery on his broken face. There is an infection and he’s out indefinitely until everything is completely clean and healed up. In terms of the guys in Abby, I update the prospects NHLE here every couple of days. Granlund is producing a lot of shots, which is good. Knight has been the best prospect in Abbotsford thus far. Reinhart’s scoring will get up to a PPG at some point so that’s really good too.

Arnold and Agostino are the two seniors we really have to worry about. Neither really have the cache needed to be guys that are lured away. In saying that, Arnold is scoring at a really good pace right now and I’ve considered him to be a guy with 3rd line potential for years – so hopefully that contract comes soon after BC is done for the year. Gilmour has had a really good start, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if all of the rest of them went back for one more year, including Gaudreau.

Q: @thefanblogger was saying that Baertschi is on the block and will be traded before Christmas. Who do you think he’ll be traded to and for who?‎

If they trade him now, they’re just as bad as the Oilers are. With that caveat in mind, any trade that doesn’t have, at the very least, a first-round pick plus more coming back is simply a massive waste of an asset. I just can’t think of a single compelling reason for the Flames to trade him – which means that of course he’ll be moved. All of this is thanks to Burke.

Q: How much wood would a Klimchuk chuck if a Klimchuk could chuck wood?

A: Probably 16.

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