Health concerns were certainly there for the Flames, as Smith missed a fair bit of time down the stretch, the Jaromir Jagr experiment was a bust, key players didn't contribute nearly as much as they would have hoped and the blueline, which was their prized position, had too many big minute players and sharing those kind of minutes is really hard to do.
Overall, the Flames just couldn't keep the pace up that some teams were playing with. Vegas joined the league and played like they were shot out of a cannon, Colorado finally lived up to some of their billing with their kids and then some teams just continued to roll, like your San Jose's and Anaheim's. These teams were either trending upward or starting to level off, while the Flames now find themselves in a downward trend again.
In total, there were only nine Flames on the pool worthy list and joining Gaudreau up front were Sean Monahan, Matthew Tkachuk, Mikael Backlund and Micheal Ferland, which goes to show you just how little scoring depth the Flames had up front. The production from the defense was quite reasonable, as Dougie Hamilton, Mark Giordano and T.J. Brodie all had worthy seasons to be picked up, but lacked that extra bit of something in their own end. Mike Smith only appeared in 55 games this season and posted 25 wins, which was good enough for 15th among all goalies, but when he was on the injured list, there wasn't much help for the team beyond him.
What I Said Last Year, At This Time...
It's really hard to put a prediction down on the Flames, when you don't know who is going to be the number one goalie in town, but with a defense corps, which is now led by Dougie Hamilton, they would be best to try and get the harder working goaltender, rather than the flashier goaltender, especially since the three key defensemen aren't always known for clearing the front of the net too quickly. The Flames are not short on scoring, they'll just need to tighten up the back end a little bit. This is no easy task. The result of the 2018 season hinges mainly on the goalie they choose and right now, the Flames are on the tipping point of making the playoffs or not, probably more than any other West team today.
Well, the Flames didn't do too badly in the goalie department, but all of that scoring they had in 2017 really dried up. They managed to take care of one problem, only to see a new one pop up. So I guess this would be a bit of a miss, since they couldn't get to the playoffs after signing a decent goalie, but now what are they going to do?
How did my intriguing or breakout player fare?
And talk about another miss, Sam Bennett did not have a breakout season. It wasn't even a pool worthy season. The 21-year old managed to play in all 82 games, but he was only able to register 11 goals and 26 points, far from where I had him pegged at the start of the season. How much more patience will the Flames have with him, before he needs a change of scenery or the Flames look to get a half decent return for him in a trade.
2019 Pool Outlook
Forwards | Cap | Defense | Cap | Goalies | Cap |
Johnny Gaudreau | 6.750 | Mark Giordano | 6.750 | Mike Smith | 5.667 |
Sean Monahan | 6.375 | Dougie Hamilton | 5.750 | Tyler Parsons | 0.759 |
Mikael Backlund | 5.350 | TJ Brodie | 4.650 | ||
Troy Brouwer | 4.500 | Travis Hamonic | 3.857 | ||
Michael Frolik | 4.300 | Michael Stone | 3.500 | ||
Sam Bennett | 1.950 | Rasmus Andersson | 0.756 | ||
Micheal Ferland | 1.750 | Oliver Kylington | 0.731 | ||
Curtis Lazar | 0.950 | ||||
Matthew Tkachuk | 0.925 | ||||
Spencer Foo | 0.925 | ||||
Ryan Lomberg | 0.710 | ||||
Andrew Mangiapane | 0.705 |
All of the pool worthy guys will be back for another spin in Calgary, or so we are to believe, but they are certainly going to expect more from their veteran players. A guy like Michael Frolik will need to bounce back and get a better year offensively under his belt, while young players like Sam Bennett and Curtis Lazar need to be better as well.
Free Agency and the Salary Cap
The bright side to this summer's free agency period for the Flames is that they don't have any key free agents from the pool worthy list to contend with. Prospect goalie Jon Gillies is up for a new deal as an RFA and he could be the backup next season, while Mark Jankowski, who had a strong finish to the 2018 season, also needs an RFA deal done. These two could be pool worthy, as soon as next year, if they play their cards right.
I currently have the Flames' cap number at $68.5 million, which includes a couple of small buyouts still on the books. With the cap ceiling moving closer to $80 million, that should give the Flames some ammunition for free agency this summer.
Needs at the 2018 Entry Draft
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