The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 132: Fanning The Flames

Episode Date: January 20, 2017

Kent Wilson joins the show to help adopt the Calgary Flames, who appear to be some combination of fun, interesting, and legitimately good for really the first time in recent memory. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 1:40 Recent Flames History 6:50 An Apology to Mikael Backlund 11:30 Monahan with and without Gaudreau 20:50 Appreciating Dougie Hamilton 23:30 Should the Flames be buyers at the deadline? 29:30 Brian Elliott vs. Chad Johnson 32:05 Nailing the small decisions Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, and Stitcher. All past episodes can be found here in chronological order. Make sure to subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews of the show are also greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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And joining me is Ken Wilson. Kent, what's going on then? Not much, just enjoying a nice snuck here in Calgary. It was minus 30 for a few weeks, but it's about plus 10 now. That's quite the difference. You know what? I'm really happy you're on for people that might have just started tuning in this year or don't remember I had you on last year to talk about the Calgary Flames. You follow them pretty closely and write about them for Flames Nation.

But I also really want to get you on because for people that might not know, you're one of the true kind of hockey blogging OGs. I think that by the transitive property, the person I and I think many, many others out their career to in this industry just because if only for the fact that you're the one that hired Thomas Drans and he's the ones that hired me, for example, and sort of laid the foundation and sort of the rest is history. So I wanted to thank you for that. My pleasure.

It's funny because, yeah, I started as kind of the editor-in-chief at Nation Network years ago and so many people have kind of passed through those gates. It was yourself, Thomas, Travis Yost, wrote for a bit on NHL numbers, Eric Tulski, and, you know, all the computer boys down in Florida now. So it's, yeah, it's funny. Yeah, and you still got, I mean, we shouldn't leave out Jonathan Willis as well. He's one of the OGs as well. I feel like I haven't been able to say the following statement in a long, long time,

but I legitimately mean it when I say that the Calgary Flames are fun, interesting, and appear to be legitimately good. What a time to be alive, I guess. Yeah. Well, I would argue that back when they were a Cinderella team a couple seasons ago, they were definitely fun and interesting. They weren't legitimately good, but it was at least a fun season to be a fan,

and it was a nice sort of breath of fresh air, even though it was more illusion than anything else. But this year, yeah, it looks like it might be a bit more legitimate. Yeah, when I was prepping for this show, I kind of looked back at their year-by-year history over the past decade or so. And, I mean, that 2014-2015 is the only time they've made the playoffs in the past this would be like seven years or something like that. And, you know, as you lay it out, they probably shouldn't have been there.

They were riding some pretty fortunate percentages and they won a playoff round, but that's just because they were playing sort of an equally fraudulent team in the Vancouver Canucks. But when I was looking at their years, I was kind of blown away by that 2008-2009. team where, you know, it was one of a Gindlera's final elite seasons and Camilleri was at a point of game. And I think even more noteworthy than that is that he managed to stay healthy all year, which was the important part of it. And, you know, they were getting north of like 55% of like that at 5-1-5. And unfortunately, they just got wretched goaltending from Kiprasoff and had the misfortune of just drawing the Blackhawks in the first round.

Yeah, that was a frustrating season in hindsight because, as you say, it was one of, is one of the best teams, the organization had put the... together in years and since. And just a few things went wrong that season. So as you say, Kiprasov had one of his worst seasons as an NHL goal goalie, at least for the flames. They went out and they got Oliokin at the deadline. And that didn't really work out too well.

It sort of cratered their cap management at the end of the year. They ran into a bevy of injury. So Finov, who was still actually pretty good at the time, went into the point. playoffs injured. So all these things kind of came together to to undermine what should have been a really good season. So I think people might be kind of surprised when, you know, we say that this blame team is really good, is at least, you know, legitimately good or for consideration of being good right now just because if you look at, you know, their sort of portfolio or their profile of the season in totality, it doesn't really look that impressive. I mean, they're hovering

just over the 50% mark in terms of shot attempts for the year. And, you know, they're sitting in a wild card spot right now, but there's a couple teams there that are right on their heels. And I think, you know, being just a few points ahead of a team like the Canucks or something like that isn't necessarily, you know, something to write home about. But it's, it's one of those things where if you look recently, I think my cutoff point is kind of after the Christmas break, it's been nearly a month now since then. They've played 11 games in that time. And they're third in the league at score-adjusted any pretty much, either course here, Fenwick, or whatever you want to sort by. I mean, they're in that top tier with the Bruins,

the Kings, the Capitals, and kind of surprisingly the Oilers as well. So I guess the logical question is sort of what's changed in that time to kind of spur this dramatic increase in underlying performance that they've gone through. Yeah, as you say, you know, if you look at the season in total or an aggregate, it's not terribly impressive. And a big part of that is for the first at least four to six weeks of the season, they were awful. I mean, they came out and they didn't look like nobody on the team looked like they knew

how to play hockey in the NHL. All of their stars came out just ice cold. The goaltending was sub-900, and the special teams were the worst in the league. So everything went wrong to start the season. It looked like they made a terrible mistake with Glenn Gulletson and the new hires, and it looked like it was going to be another race to the bottom for the flames.

But since then, they've really turned it around. And some of it is just, you know, the goaltending regressing back to what it should be. and ironically it's Chad Johnson kind of leading that charge but even Brian Elliott has been much better relative to a very terrible start for him the special teams went from

worst in the league and they've been some of the best in the league at least in terms of results and even the shooting totals have improved for both of them so all that stuff kind of I would say that's the coach getting to know the team the team getting to know the coach and things just starting

to come together and outside of all that in terms of roster management and decisions, you see the back in line becoming one of the best possession units in the league, despite some really tough circumstances. And, you know, you started out the year with, you know, Monaghan and Goodrow kind of getting power versus power because Galitzin came in and assumed those were the two best forwards on the team, you know, justifiably. And he's kind of had to figure out over a period of time that, you know, those are good. offensive players, but your best, you know, all around line, that's not it.

So he's juggled that, those sort of circumstances, managing the roster a little better, and it's starting to come together. Yeah, I want to apologize to Michael Backland, his friends, his family, and I guess all of his supporters out there. A few weeks back, I did a mid-season award show with Chris Johnson, and we were discussing the guys in the consideration for the Selke Trophy, and we kind of went through sort of just the old, reliable names, but I could just kind of totally. brainfar and didn't mention backland and I think that he's right up there he might actually be the

favorite at this point for me just I mean if you look at the season he's having it's you know he's it's funny obviously for an award that's technically like the best defensive forward a lot of you need to have a certain baseline level of offensive production to to get legitimate consideration for it and he's kind of getting the counting stats at this point but I mean the underlying metrics are phenomenal at this point and and I think that you know it's not necessarily surprising to anyone that's kind of been following him for the past few years that he's this good because he's been doing it a little bit under the radar for a while now. And Michael Froleck similarly is a guy who's been very underrated and sort of just constantly has good shot metrics and good

totals in that regard. But I think that, you know, the surprising part of that line has been Matthew Kachuk. Have you kind of just been blown away by his performance so far? Yeah, I didn't expect anything like this. And no reasonable person should expect anything like this out of a teenage rookie in the NHL. Usually when guys make the leap that early, there's one or two things that's carrying them along. Maybe they score a lot when they first make it in like Sean Monaghan and the rest of their game needs some sort of tuning. But he seems to have leapt indily, more or less fully formed. I think his offense may get better, but I mean, he's already a really, really good a two-way player, which is really rare.

I mean, I'd actually like to see him away from Backland and FroLeak just for the sake of experimentation to see what he can do with lesser sort of two-way players and know what the chemistry and alchemy is there, but for right now, it's been tremendous. Yeah, I mean, just, you know, the other day we were talking about a guy like Joe Colborn, and I mean, if you look at his numbers with ProLeak and Backlund last year and then look at his sort of minutes with everyone else and then how he's performed this year in Colorado. I mean, you get a pretty good idea of sort of what those two guys are able to do in terms of bringing a third guy along with him. But I think just watching Kachuk, he's been a revelation for me personally

because, you know, he came into the league with the name and draft pedigree, and he figured he'd be one of the more NHL-ready prospects in this past year's draft just because of sort of how physically mature him and his game already were. But what's blown me away is, I mean, he's so incredibly skilled in these tight spaces around the net and it's also just how fantastic he is in the neutral zone carrying the puck in like all of it is just sort of coming together and you know we obviously knew that he'd be kind of like his father sort of an otherworldly pest getting under people's skin and he's he's drawn 23 penalties already this year which only macdavid and eilers have drawn more and they sort of use their kind of more conventional blazing speed and skill to draw those whereas

kachak has really done a good job of just sort of uh just irritating the opposition so I think that, you know, it's going to be tough for him to, it's going to be next to impossible at this point to leap frog Austin Matthews in the Calder, a trophy discussion just because of sort of the other early season he's having himself. But with Line A out now and guys like Werenski and Provov slowing down from their tour at early season start, I think that there's a legitimate argument to say that Matthew Kachuk is the second in line right now in terms of being the best rookie this season. Yeah, I definitely think so.

And it probably is not going to happen now, but down the road if other men's, metrics and other results, aside from, you know, really great offense start to matter in these sort of races. If that was true this year, I think Kachuk would be the favorite because it's really hard to argue against, I think the last time I looked, he had the best relative possession rate in the entire league. And he's playing in some of the toughest circumstances. You can talk about it even strength. So, I mean, the scoring is great, but it's almost secondary to what he is driving in Calgary right now. Yeah, for sure. I mean, they're, you know, pretty much any metric you sort by in terms of shots and stuff like that, it's like, it's that line and it's like, you know, Patrice Bergeron and Bradshaw and David Pasternak.

And it's, it's the kind of names you come to, come to expect to be up there. And so they're keeping pretty impressive company. I think that, you know, that line's been amazing and the flames have needed every single bit of it because beyond that, I think it's been a little bit of a struggle. I mean, you mentioned early on how their top guys were underperforming and, you know, Johnny Good. The Joe is obviously off the pace he was at last year, at least, where he was kind of clipping at a point per game. And, you know, aside from the injury that kept him out at the start of the year, it's pretty clear that, you know, he's going to be fine. He's still awesome. He hasn't just lost his skill all of a sudden. Like, I wouldn't be worried about him moving forward.

But the two logical questions kind of following up on that are, can they find a third guy to play with him and Monaghan? Because I don't think that Alex Chassan is that guy. I mean, you know, the Ottawa senators who are sorely. needing any offense they can get from their forwards. We're just eager to give them away for peanuts this summer. So, I mean, he's clearly not the long-term answer there. And beyond that, I mean, should we even just take it as a given that Monaghan should

automatically just be playing those minutes with Goodrow? Or do you think that are you kind of skeptical of whether that is a pairing that should be playing together moving forward? They actually haven't been for a big portion recently. He's been moving Goodroll around a little bit. with Bennett, who is actually a healthy scratch tonight. So Gro's supposedly going to play with Matt Stajon to start. So he started the season out with that unit,

and he went back to them a couple times just based on some of their success previously. But it may come to the point where, yeah, that isn't a duo moving forward. We'll see what the rest of the season brings. But as you say, the real challenge here is one, finding someone on the right side who may be able to support. either Monahan or Gudrow and Monaghan at the same time I somewhat suspect that the team thought that might be Troy Brower this year

Yes That was a bad bet And he made that very clear on Flames Nation during the summer And he hasn't stuck there at all He's kind of bounced around He still plays with Monaghan a bit more But he's kind of been up and down the lineup With Goet's and trying to find a fit for him

So Yeah I mean just watching him at the start of the year It looked like he was just like skating in quicksand. He just couldn't, I feel like he couldn't keep up physically with the pace Goodroo wanted or needs to play at to be successful. Yeah, and Brower has kind of been that middle rotation. You know, ideally he should be on a third or fourth line and even strength,

just looking at his results going back a few years and given his speed and his age. If you're signing Troy Brower as you did this summer, you should probably be signing a guy you expect to be playing, you know, 12 to 15 minutes a night, maybe doing some power play work where he has his best results, but certainly not trying to keep up with your two young stars facing other teams' best defenders and stuff. Well, the reason why I brought up, you know, Godrew Romanahan in the same breath there

was just because I think that for the past couple years, I mean, if you weren't really paying attention, you just sort of thought they were just like 1A, 1B, kind of a package deal. And they were playing a lot together. I think that since Goodro, in the league, Monaghan spent like 65 or so percent of his five-on-five minutes with him. So it's pretty clear that, you know, they were just playing together pretty frequently.

But I feel like, you know, before the flames went out and just handed him a seven-year, $45 million contract this summer, I feel like they probably should have vetted this a little bit more where they split them up and actually made sure that Monaghan was, you know, worthy of that sort of money as opposed to just being kind of a glorified passenger that was just riding shotgun and benefiting from playing with such a dynamic player like Goodrow. Yeah, and that was part of my concern as well. I think I've written more than one article over the season saying, you know, looking at Monaghan, looking at Goodrow, and looking them together and separate.

And Monaghan's results always kind of dropped away from Goodrow. And some of that you have to take in consideration his first season in the NHL when he made it as a rookie and was a sender on a bad team. so but even if you took out that season you know that there was a dichotomy there were goodrose results didn't fluctuate too much most of the time but monahan certainly dropped so i think the team kind of made the bet based on one he seemed to be an above-average shooter which is you know that's a talent that is expensive to acquire and keep in the nchel fair enough but i think they're also betting on development just the good shooter can score if he improves

then, you know, we've made a good bet. And part of the issue this year is that hasn't really happened. He's been coming around just recently after, you know, several months of really lackluster two-way play. We'll see what happens for the rest of the year. But he's still hyper-sheltered. He's one of the most sheltered forwards on the teams, at least in terms of zone starts and stuff. So they may just have a really good shooter who can't really do. drive play in shaltry. Well, and you know, as you mentioned, like goals are very expensive to

come by in this league and tough to get your hands on. And he's, we should also acknowledge he's only 22 years old. So it's very conceivable that he could improve as, as he gets older and kind of reaches his physical prime here in the coming years. So I'm, you know, reserving my judgment and willing to change my stance. I'm as a player if the underlying performance changes. But I just thought it was always kind of a bit hasty or a bit curious to just jump into that sort of. of a contract without actually kind of seeing what you actually fully had in him. And I don't know, it's going to be interesting to see how he does moving forward. But, I mean, you mentioned Sam Bennett there as well, and he's going to be a healthy

scratch tonight. We're recording this on a Thursday afternoon. I mean, I'm obviously still a big fan of his talent and his future, and you are as well. I'm pretty sure, you know, you're on the record saying if you had to take Bennett or or Monaghan, you would still take Bennett at this point? Yeah, I've sort of, I don't know. little less big on that opinion at this point just because, you know, he came out and had a, I think, had a pretty good rookie season. There was a few games where he was definitely a

difference maker for the flames. He came with a tremendous resume. So I looked at him as a good bet, but this year he has really, he hasn't just run in place, he sort of regressed, especially over the last, say, 10 to 15 games. He's been one of the work. possession players on the team may be the worst, at least the worst, senderman for sure. He seems very hesitant about his game in the NHL right now, not sure how to execute. He's been punished more than once this year by the coach for bad penalties. He's one of the guys on the team who just keeps taking penalties.

As you may or may not know, the flames have gone from one of the least penalized teams in the league to one of the most penalized teams in the league. And some of that is obviously Matthew Kachuk being a monster of mayhem, but... Bennett is also one of the sort of the culprits of that. And without also driving play and scoring at a notable level, he sort of has become a liability. So I am still a believer in his talent and his tenacity.

I think there's a really good base there, but I need to see him turn it around at some point, at least by the end of the season, to get back up to that optimistic level. Well, I mean, yeah, he's, he leads the league in penalties of 5-1-5. And unlike Matthew Kachuk, he hasn't really been drawing them at, you know, a rate that's been matching that. So that's definitely a problem.

He needs to stay out of the penalty box. But the thing about him is, like, I feel like heading into the season, I imagine that, you know, the Flames Brass was sort of not necessarily banking on, but maybe optimistically hopeful that he would be able to take that. next step and sort of drive a third line, maybe by himself or with some help from some linemates? Because, I mean, if that came to fruition, then all of a sudden you're cooking here, I mean, you've got those three lines. We mentioned the backland line. And if, you know, pretty much whoever Goodro plays with, it's probably going to wind up being pretty good. So if Bennett could

sort of become an actual sort of driver himself, that would all of a sudden make this team so much more potent to play against. Yeah, that's for sure. I think if you ask most Flames fans heading into the season to drop their depth chart and potential lines. And maybe if you talk to management as well, you probably would have had, you know, Godroa Monaghan as the top line, Bennett and someone else as a second line, and then Michael Backland and Frolek as a third line. And it's kind of been inverted a little bit this year with the Backland line coming out and, you know, driving most of the results and everyone else kind of trying to figure out

what to do in much more shelter. sheltered pastures. So the good news is, as you mentioned, the flames have really good shot metrics the last month or so. And part of that is it looks like Monahan and Goodrow are actually coming around too. They've been still relatively sheltered, but they're actually starting to out shoot the opposition and only Sam Bennett's kind of lagged behind. So as you say, if the flames young guys can figure it out, they're cooking.

Yeah, for sure. Well, so, I mean, we mentioned some of the stuff that's happened that's caused. that jump in underlying performance. I think the other thing that's coincided with it based on timeline is that, you know, they finally started properly using Dougie Hamilton. They moved him up to play with Yurado and now he's finally playing more than guys like Wyatman and Eggland at 515, which wasn't the case for a large chunk of the start of the year, which was alarming and distressing, to say the least. What is it about this guy that seems to just, you know, throw people off for whatever reason because whenever I watch him play like he's just one of these guys that it seems

that you know he does everything well it seems like he regardless of what your tastes in a player are or what your kind of go-to method of analysis is whether or more of a number oriented guy or you know one of these old school guys that are just watching the game and relying on that like both seem to check out perfectly well for him like I don't understand why there's anyone in the world that isn't a huge Douggy Hamilton fan just in terms of him as the player of course Yeah, it's pretty baffling. I can only speculate because I've mostly liked Hamilton here, of course. So there's maybe two things.

So one, Hamilton is a big guy, but he doesn't necessarily play a big, mean game. And when I talk to a lot of, say, conventional or old school hockey people, that's probably the first thing they bring up. It's like, there's this big guy out there, but he looks soft to me. And looking soft is a huge no-no in the classic lexicon of great. rating players, right? Especially defensemen. So there's that.

And the other thing is, is he's more offensively adept than he is defensively, which isn't to say he's bad defensively, but sometimes when things aren't going well for him, he looks high risk because of that sort of ratio of skill set. So at the start of this year and the start of his first season here in Calgary, things went really badly for him and for the team both times.

So he looked like sort of a high. high-risk kind of player that you have to be careful with. But the truth is he's moderately good defensively, but he's so good offensively that it almost doesn't matter. He's driving shots. He's driving plays and chance and goal differential. So that's the bottom line. Yeah, that is the bottom line.

I mean, he's been immensely productive pretty much his entire career. So kind of just all the other things he might kind of be concerned about or might put you off. I feel like that that should just be the deciding factor. Okay, so if you're running the flames, spinning it forward, how do you approach this trade deadline? Because let's assume that, you know, six weeks from now or whenever the deadline is, they're still hovering around the spot where, you know, they could conceivably jump into one of the three Pacific spots, but they're also holding onto a wild card. And it looks like they could very well be a playoff team. Are you making any sort of moves right now, or are you kind of standing pat and just taking it into the summer and then going from there?

I'm always cautious or I always would be if I was a GM in the NHL approaching trade deadline just because of the auction sort of atmosphere and the rising cost to play. But the one thing I would definitely do is be a seller. And I don't mean that I would go out and try to move Monaghan or something. But if anyone came calling and asking me about Derek England or Dennis Wideman or one of these sort of extra parts and they offered me anything for them, I would immediately say yes. it wouldn't matter where the flames were in terms of standings. Sometimes you just don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right? So I always go back to San Jose trading Douglas Murray to Pittsburgh at the deadline for a couple second round picks. That always blew me away.

And they were in a playoff spot at the time. Well, I mean, even from a flames example, like how they got a couple picks for Curtis Glencross that year, they actually made the playoffs. I thought that was one of the more underrated kind of. just positive value-added moves that we've seen in recent years at the deadline. Yeah, but in terms of if they're going to buy, I would, I mean, their needs are obvious. We've kind of gone over them a little bit here, another top six winger, if possible. And I'd like another top four defensemen to push Dennis Widman down the rotation and push one of England or Yerki-Yolka-Paka out of the lineup more or less permanently. that would definitely make life a little bit easier for the blue line.

Yeah, I guess the problem with a top six scoring winger and a top four of defensemen being your needs are that 29 other teams also have those needs. So that definitely kind of drives the auction prices up, as you mentioned. The reason why I said there's such an interesting team at the top of the show beyond just the fact that, you know, they're playing good hockey now is that, you know, those needs are so well defined. I feel like for a lot of other teams, there's a lot of holes. they could pretty much take help wherever they could get it for this flames team.

Like I feel like there are small little moves there without necessarily having to pay exorbitant prices that could make a big difference. Like I think even if, you know, just getting a guy like like, like even Radeem for Bata for example, just like a peanut like could get whatever it takes to get him, which I imagine would be extremely minimal at this point as a rental. Like I feel like just putting him in a more of a kind of scoring offensively oriented role and not having to use a guy like Alex Chassan there would be a pretty massive difference. So I think just kind of small stuff like that could really help this team out.

But the other thing that's interesting to me is that, you know, this is going to be a huge summer for them coming up because they have some serious money coming off the books. It's slightly over $8 million in cap space with Whiteman and Eggland expiring. And those are two spots that, you know, if they could upgrade there, like they could arguably be having the best blue line in the league. and, you know, I think that how they approach this summer is going to be very telling for what their future is going to look like moving forward. Yeah, for sure. They have a lot of, I'm not going to say dead money, but bad money coming off the books.

And how true living reinvests that will go a long way to determine the success of this rebuild moving forward. I mean, if they can land one or two guys who bring value just even the way Michael Froelik has. and not another couple of England's or browbrowers, it'll make a world of difference. Well, and I think the other thing is with the looming expansion draft, I mean, looking at this team, I don't necessarily think they have seven forwards and three defensemen that they have to keep

or eight combined skaters. Like, I feel like, you know, maybe there'd be an opportunity here where they could take another player off of another team that's in a number crunch and kind of get them at a discount rate. Like, I feel like stuff like that is also going to make this coming trade deadline

so much more fascinating than years past. Yeah, it'll be really interesting to see how the expansion draft monkeys with the trade market here in the next little while. As you say, I'm hesitant about adding any more blue liners just because I want them to protect the obvious top three of Brody, Chiridano, and Hamilton. But up front, yeah, they have some options, especially if they're willing to waive Troy Brower, which maybe, maybe not. I kind of hope they do expose him in the draft and he gets taken just because I think he's

going to be bad money moving forward. But yeah, it's going to be sort of a fascinating little experiment here. Yeah, I mean, at the same time, like, I understand completely what you're saying about the blue line and how you don't want to add any other guys and you just roll with these three. But, like, you know, if they are going to be a playoff team this year, I think if they added another guy that could play with Brody and sort of bump Wyateman down to, more of a third pairing type guy. Like all of a sudden you could just roll those two pairings for like 50 to 55 minutes of a

playoff game. And I feel like that all of a sudden just makes them so much more frightening to deal with in a short series like that. Oh yeah, for sure. I was speaking from an expansion draft point of view. But yeah, yeah, the deadline, even if you could pick up, say, Cody Franzen from the Buffalo Sabres for next to nothing, I mean, he's not a superstar or anything, but I bet you he's better than Wyman in the top four.

Yeah. Oh, for sure. And there'd be that trickle-down effect, right? Wyatman moves down to minutes more well-suited for where his skills are at at this point of his career, and then it bumps a guy like Derek England out, and all of a sudden it's all adding up. I guess the one other sort of thing that we haven't really touched on yet with this team and other kind of decision that they're going to have to make here coming up in the next few months is, would you be more leaning towards keeping Brian Elliott or Chad Johnson or maybe neither? Yeah, that's a super tough question. And I put up a sort of a post on it recently, and I didn't come to any conclusion. I just kind of asked the community on Flames Nation, what would you do just because, you know, the tree living came into this season with a very clear plan, and it was reasonable and rational. You go in with Brian Elliott as the putative starter. You have Chad Johnson as, you know, a battle tested backup who can provide relief and redundancy. and then you have John Gillies in the HL, where you hope he can kind of start looking like an NHL starter in the next year or so,

and, you know, none of that has come to fruition. Brian Elliott's had one of his worst seasons to date in the last, I think, six years since he left Ottawa. You have Chad Johnson kind of becoming the incumbent starter here, although it's kind of jockeys back and forth day by day. And then John Gilley's struggling in the HL. So there's absolutely no clarity in the crease for Calgary. And I don't even want to speculate at this point what they can do or what they should do. It's going to take, I think, the rest of the year just to see how it shakes out.

Yeah, it's tough because with goalies, you never want to be sort of picking up the tab and buying high on them. And I feel like Chad Johnson's value is at an all-time high here, whereas it's quite conceivable that, like I still am a fan of Brian Elliott in his game, and I think that it's possible. that, you know, his shaky performance to start this year cost him quite a bit of money this summer. So if you could get him for a cheaper price, all of a sudden, that would be a pretty enticing option.

Yeah, it definitely could be. And it'll depend on what both players are looking for as unrestricted free agents this summer. And my speculation is that both of them are going to look for some sort of commitment from whoever they sign with because they've kind of both been kicking around as 1B options or backup options. and Chad Johnson's 30, Elliot's going to be 31 or 32,

and they're kind of coming to the end of the line where they can cash in and become a guaranteed starter and get starter money. So ideally the flames would convince both of them to stick around on reasonable contracts for a year or two just because I like the redundancy, but that may be a pipe dream. Yeah, all right. Well, I guess I feel like we kind of covered it all. I think that, you know, the takeaway from this is, I think we're both pretty high on this team, right?

I think, you know, I was willing to believe that they'd be better heading into the season than they were last year or the year before. But I have to say, I've been kind of pleasantly surprised by how well they've been playing lately here. Yeah, especially after their start as a fan watching them come out and stumble so badly fall in their face. And it kind of got the feeling of here we go again, right? you know who's going to be in the top five for the draft this year right but um to have them sort of turn it around and and have the january that they've had even despite two just dreadful performances against the winnipeg jets and new jersey devils they have these sort of weird outings they're sticking out like a sore thrum you know even with those they have great underlying numbers and it

looks like it's starting to starting to come together yeah and i think that you know they've fortunately got the the toughest thing locked down which is sort of the the core of the nucleus the the building blocks now in their future will be sort of reliant upon whether they can surround those guys in a smart and cost efficient way and you know hopefully avoid locking themselves down to england and brower type contracts and you know avoiding letting guys like like paul byron and just just go for no reason and not really replacing them with anything other than kind of step steps back right like if all of a sudden if they had another fourth line here that was that was driving possession as well.

Like we'd be so much more optimistic about them. So it's kind of small stuff like that that, you know, seems small and irrelevant at the time, but it all kind of adds up and could really make a difference moving forward. Yeah, and they have, you know, pretty much the ultimate assets in the Backland line who's doing what, you know, a Patrice Bergeron line is doing in Boston. And then you have a first pairing like Giordano and Hamilton that most teams in the league would kill for. if they can do something,

they should be able to do something with that kind of base to work on and it's going to be interesting to see if they can. Yeah. All right, Kent. Plug some stuff where can people find you online and check out your writing and all your thoughts on Twitter and all that stuff. On Twitter, it's just my name, so Kent

underscore Wilson. And then I primarily write for Flames Nation these days, although sometimes my stuff will pop up in the Calgary Herald or other places that ask me to write now and then. Well, I highly recommend checking out your stuff and following you on Twitter. And let's try and get you back on as the season goes long.

Maybe around the trade deadline, if things start heating up and the flames start facing some of these more interesting decisions in the present, we can kind of recalibrate where we're at with them. Yeah, thanks, man. And the other thing I'd like to come on and talk about is how bad the Vancouver Canucks are. So if you ever have a show on that, yeah, I'll be a guest for sure. Absolutely. All right, man. Talk soon. Sounds good. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich.

Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pfediocast.