Folks, the Calgary Flames played a game on Saturday night. They won’t play another game until next Sunday, Feb. 23. And so we have a couple weeks to rest, to reflect, and to ponder the final 27 games for the Flames.
Let’s dive into the mailbag!
Over on Sportsnet 960 The Fan, our pal Pat Steinberg on Flames Talk was pondering this last week and mentioned the Flames’ need for a low-cost, right-shot fourth line centre. It’s no secret that Kevin Rooney has had some tough nights recently, but he’s probably hanging around in the lineup because he’s a centre. If the Flames can find an inexpensive right-shot replacement, that could be something they value that could provide some upside in defensive zone draws and the penalty kill.
(We’ll look at possible fits on the site later this week.)
I’m going to be pretty blunt: I think the Flames are close enough to the playoffs that their goal is to make it this season. And so considering that goal, I suspect we’ll primarily see Dustin Wolf from here on out with Dan Vladar used sparingly, as a backup should be, in spot duty to keep Wolf fresh. There’s 27 games remaining: I suspect we see Wolf in roughly 20 of them, Vladar in seven and, barring injuries, Cooley in zero. He’ll be a big, big part of the Wranglers playoff run and I suspect he’ll be given every opportunity to make the NHL roster next season.
Mikko Rantanen is an awesome player. He’d be expensive but they have oodles of cap space, and my only qualm would be whether or not the Flames have the supporting cast to be able to use him as a springboard for the team to get to the next level.
From BlueSky: “I still am not clear on new NCAA rule change coming this August re CHL kids going to US colleges. Does this change NCAA draftees in the NHL and the commitment to the drafting team.”
Honestly, nothing
really changes extensively for drafted players.
We dug into the ins and outs of the new situation a few weeks back, but junior players in the USHL and NAHL had the option of going to college after being drafted in the past. It’s just that now a lot more players will be doing that, and they’ll be coming from Canada, too.
Morgan Frost solved the Flames “age-appropriate young centre” problem. But they also wanted to add scoring depth and some snarl, and right now they have Blake Coleman and little else in terms of rugged players that can score consistently. Joel Farabee adds to that and, theoretically, provides a bit of a succession plan behind Coleman. Neither Frost or Farabee have trade protection, so you can’t fully rule out subsequent moves, but I’d doubt it right now.
The Flames are a team that feels like they have to play a specific style of game in order to win, and they have a way they like to have their lines and pairings set up in order to execute on that game plan. They’re definitely not a team with high-end offensive difference-makers right now, so their tendency has been towards fourth-liners that play a structured style of game and forwards otherwise that have shown consistency at lower levels. We can debate the wiseness of this view, and we’ll see how successful the approach will end up being between now and the end of the season.
That ship has probably sailed. Even before this season, the presence and skill level of the incumbent veterans was probably going to keep the Flames outside of the league’s basement. And now that they’ve discovered that Dustin Wolf has the capability of being, well, Dustin Wolf, I don’t think a full-on to-the-studs rebuild is in the cards.
Got a question for a future mailbag? Contact Ryan on Twitter/BlueSky at @RyanNPike or e-mail him at Ryan [at] TheNationNetwork.com! (Make sure you put Mailbag in the subject line!)
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