The Mangiapane-Kadri-Dube line ABSOLUTELY SUCKS, so does Lucic.

We’re better off on the PK than we are 5on5 with Lucic on the ice. Alternatively, I would much rather have Lucic take FaceOffs than Lewis, especially in the Defensive Zone. At least Lucic can cleanly win FaceOffs back to our D-Men so it can be cleared out of the zone. Otherwise once the other Team gets possession, they immediately have a man advantage, so long as Lucic is on the ice FML 🤦‍♂️ This is especially true when the Flames 4th line ices the puck. The opponent quickly puts their #1 line on the ice against Lucic-Lewis-Ritchie for the next FaceOff, which puts us at a HUGE disadvantage

Dube & Mangiapane need to be demoted to the 4th line to motivate them to work themselves back up AFAIC, just too many reckless giveaways in our own zone leading to goals. They have played better on the PK together than 5on5 with Kadri. Kadri simply needs more Defensively focused Wingers, like Coleman and either Ritchie or Lewis

WTF is Hubderdeau playing on a line with Coleman for anyways!? Can we at least give him and Backlund a Good Shooting Winger like Ruzicka, Mang, Toffoli, Dube or Phillips?!? Even Ritchie would be a better option than Coleman whose Style is Working & Grinding, not Skill & Soft Hands, which Huberdeau needs. At least Ritchie knows where to go and be = the front of the net

Vladar should clearly be our Starting Goaltender, the guy's an absolute BEAST!

Stone is by far our BEST Shooting & Scoring D-Man. He needs to be utilized far more often, especially on the PP and on Offensive Zone Face Offs. I would also have Ruzicka or Mangiapane on the 1st PP over Kadri too, his play isn’t really conducive to the more skilled passing & cycle game of Hubderdeau & Lindholm imo

Sutter is under or simply not utilizing his players properly based on their obvious strengths imo. He’s so focused on his system being the solution and the players buying in to it, that he isn’t paying attention to matching their skill sets, playing styles and their individually preferred speed & game rhythms. He’s forcing the square peg in to the round hole

Tough 1st period, glad Ruzicka got one, definitely need to split up dube and Mang.

Glad Ruzicka scored, too bad I had to drop him in my fantasy team.

Dube & Mang are fine together but they need a more defensive Centre like Backlund or Lindholm OR do my proposed 4th line of either:

Pelletier-Dube-Mangiapane OR
Dube-Ruzicka-Mangiapane


Let’s give Credit to Stone who knows how to get the puck on net and who’s shot is so powerful, if he doesn’t score, there’s a juicy rebound more times than not for guys like Adam “The Hunter” Ruzicka to clean up

Our #1 PP can’t score, so why isn’t Sutter immediately going back to Unit #2 with Stone, which can??? And what is Backlund even doing on the PP??? I mean c’mon already

The only thing Lucic does well is HIT and he hasn’t thrown a Hit in at least the last 1 1/2 Games. He doesn’t even Fight anymore

FYI - Lucic went 2 entire games in a row without a Shot, Hit, Block or anything of effect; complete 0's all the way across = BENCHED

I wonder if Sutter is starting to lose his guys. Happens with every one of his teams eventually.

The Flames started 5-1. They're 4-7-3 since. The 5-1 start looks like the aberration.

The forward lines need a spark and they've got three of the best forwards in the AHL.

Calgary kicks off a 5 game homestand next week. If things don't turn around I think the fans will voice their displeasure. Maybe a "We want Phillips" chant lol

Sutter's system alienates skilled players and favors 3rd and 4th line grinders. Nobody with Talent will get a chance to play in the top two lines. Last year was an anomaly in that he had Gudreau and Tkachuk to take pressure off the rest of the lines. I'm not saying that his "system" is terrible. He just needs to be removed from any decision making when it comes to talent. I think his record as a GM speaks for itself.

If that’s not enough evidence that the era of size mattering/enforcers is over I don’t know what is

I definitely agree fighting is on the outs but Big Physical Play will always exist.

There’s nothing better than separating guys off the puck or wearing them down with big hits and using a guys strength and size in the corners, behind and in front of the net

It’s definitely a Younger & Faster game now though, which Lucic is not. He’s fast, but like a train he takes too long to get up to speed. He doesn’t have fast enough acceleration or agility to defend

We have enough of everything, we should be able to have a bit of everything on each line for more balance.

We are missing another Play Maker, Play Driver and/or Finisher, hence why Phillips & Pelletier should be brought up in favour of Lucic and either Lewis or Ritchie

The physical play was for the most part always apart of the game but it’s value is pretty much gone as the game has grown into a faster style making those physical players, most of whom slower unable to keep up

I appreciate your opinion but disagree

I think every Team wants a Bigger than Average Player with Speed & Skill and if they bring Grit & Physicality, even better. Guys like Matthew Tkachuk are still the Best Players to have imo

To your point, I think that style of play wears guys down faster though, so once they hit 28, they typically start getting more tired and banged up. They either can’t recoup from or keep re-aggravating nagging injuries, which slows them down dramatically and they become far less effective

Calgary's problem is the same as it has always been: no Elite Talent. We never fail hard enough to get a high pick and any assets we do have either jump ship or are traded away to make room for "veterans" who are past their prime. 2 years max, and we're "retooling"... because heaven forbid we ever actually rebuild through the draft. Our highest draft pick ever was Sam Bennet. If it wasn't for BT's uncanny ability to swing a trade, this team would be at the bottom of the league every year.

Not too sure I agree with this. We’ve developed, traded for and signed “Elite” talent. We have a few potentially and hopefully coming up soon in Pelletier, Coronato, Zary and Wolf too

CGY sucks at Scouting and Drafting, especially in the 1st Round, so not sure that’s the route I’d want to go personally

I believe we have the pieces, they just need to be put together and in the proper order

If there isn't some line changes and call ups in our next home game they should start those chants immediately #WeWantPhillips

The only elite talent we ever drafted was Johnny Gudreau and Mathew Tkachuk....perhaps Anderson. We traded for Kipper and Iginla. It's too soon to tell if those prospects are Elite. Wolf certainly appears to be trending that way. Calgary has sucked at 1st round selections because they always draft in the middle of the round. Much of that history was Sutter or Button, neither of which had an eye for talent.

We drafted Fox and turned that into Hanifin and Lindholm, I think Brad and the office do all right considering the market, we do the best we can with what we can get.

Signing Weegar and Huberdeau long term before winter set in was a stroke of genius.

I mean, Fox was a toss in with Hamilton because he wasn't going to resign. I think BT's strengths are his resigning of players and his trade ability. Signing FAs has never been a strong suit. Nevertheless, having draft assets as capital allows you to make trades. This team isn't a Top 9 winger away from winning the cup though. They need an elite RW (or center) to right the ship and I don't see it happening this season. You never know though, BT can always surprise.

They also need another Monster Shut Down D-Man for the 3rd Pairing, since Stone isn't the Best Defensively (although I'm a huge fan of his and believe he's playing some of his best hockey right now and has been off setting his weaknesses with his amazing blast of a shot and offensive contributions)
Fox outright refused to sign any contract with CGY and made it public, completing taking away any leverage from Treliving

The problem to me is players don't want to come to Calgary unless they're Traded and have no right to refuse or we over pay them. Might be because of the additional taxation in Canada and/or because of past and perceived future Covid restrictions affecting their and their friends/families ability to travel and see one another. Not to mention the better weather and lifestyle opportunities available elsewhere

Next, I could see a lot of Draft Prospects intentionally trying to fail their Draft interviews and discourage Treliving from selecting them, so they're not selected by Calgary, perhaps wanting to avoid the whole Adam Fox "I will not sign in Calgary" event. To be honest, I can't really blame some of them given Sutter & Treliving believe in longer development in the minors, are hesitant to give young players a shot and are simply harder on them in an attempt to "make them earn it". Why join Calgary's organization when the path to the NHL and opportunities are easier to find elsewhere.

I don't blame them for cutting Valimaki, he didn't look good enough, but he seems to be doing just fine in Arizona now

The Team is so good on paper, we just need individuals to perform like they're being paid to do, but a Top-6 Right Shot C/RW and another Big Shut Down D-Man would definitely help as well, as would benching Lucic 1/2 the time

Treliving is probably doing as best as he can though given all of the above and has still been able to build a competitive team overall

I've heard the income tax argument before. I agree that it may be the case for player perceiving a benefit, but those states/municipalities make up for their taxes elsewhere: usually, luxury taxes or house taxes. Only Dallas, Nashville Florida and Tampa Bay have lower effective tax rates than Calgary, so the straight up income tax discount isn't that much lower. Reality, doesn't matter though. It's just how players perceive the state savings. The argument could be made that players are willing to take discounts to play in Vegas and Tampa because they can make more money on a lower cap hit than they could in Toronto or Montreal. However, the purchasing power parity of those places destroys your increased income. Moreover, Canadian players are still payed in US dollars. They gain considerable purchasing power from the FX. In short, a player in Calgary can afford significantly more than a player in LA, Vancouver, Toronto or NY. Given that Math isn't their strong suit, your argument about weather and the "big market" is probably more apt than any financial argument. I don't blame Tkachuk for wanting to live in Florida. He's young, rich and there are women everywhere. I get it.

Interesting point about the draft. It would be hard to prove, but the theory is sound in principle. The only issue I see with it is that if you didn't want to play for Calgary, you likely won't want to play for Edmonton, Columbus, Minnesota, St Louis, Ottawa, Buffalo, Detroit or Winnipeg either, if only because of the weather and quality of the metro area. Calgary is higher ranked than all of them in terms of standard of living. Sutter hasn't been here that long (this time around) and other teams slowly develop players (Tampa, Detroit, Toronto.)

If we really want to upgrade any of our forward group, we have to give up a roster player to do it, and it won't be Dube and a prospect. There are only so many roster spots and we aren't going to replace Gudreau and Tkachuk by "committee". That should be evident by now. On paper doesn't mean much.

I thought Huberdeau and Kadri were pretty good replacements overall. Huberdeau’s supposed to be an even better playmaker than Johnny and that Mangiapane would replace Tkachuk’s Scoring as a result

If you’re talking replacing their 40+ Goals Scored though, aside from Mang, Kadri is currently on pace for 30+, so could replace Tkachuk’s goal scoring instead of Mang, but yeah unless Toffoli has a great year, I don’t see another 40+ Goal Scorer other than Lindholm

They’re off to a slow start, but theres still a possibility we have 2-4x 30 Goal Scores by seasons end.

I think Dube will eventually break out here again himself and then hopefully it sticks this time

I primarily haven’t liked the line combos, but that Top-6 C/RW and another Shut Down D-Man would definitely be nice

I think Huberdeau's a good playmaker but Gudreau was better at slowing down the play and cycling the puck. We need another playmaker to play with Lindholm and Huberdeau. Lindholm can finish, but the chemistry just isn't there.

I definitely undervalued Tanev. I'd like them to rest him because the guy is taking a beating. I think Zadorov has taken a big step in his game, but he isn't as defensively sound as Tanev. It would be interesting to see why Kylington has been on IR for so long. We're definitely missing his speed on the back end. I saw an interesting thread where someone suggested pulling a Byfuglien and putting him on the wing (should he ever return)