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Calgary Flames Official Thread

There's been some rumors floating around that the Flames are considering trading Dougie Hamilton. I think that's a terrible move.
He's a top-scoring D-man in the NHL on a team that lacks scoring, and they'd even consider trading him?
I'd much rather see Brodie or Stone, or both go before Dougie. Only way I'd really be intrigued would be if he were to be part of a deal that brought Tavares or Karlsson to Calgary. Other than that, I'd like him to stay here.
Thoughts?

I've heard this too, but I wonder how much of this is serious rumour versus fan speculation. I think it's a really bad idea too. The team is unquestionably better with the second best goal scoring defenceman in the league on board. Especially when considering that the key trade partner named has been Carolina and that the player in question is Elias Lindholm. Lindholm is a centre, but he's a right handed shot and apparently he can play wing. There's no way that a "maybe" wing is worth a premium defenceman like Dougie. And then if you look into it further if the guy needs a change of scenery, why the heck would going to his old coach's new team be considered a change of scenery?
 
I'm a Brodie fan personally and thought his under performance in the last few seasons has a lot to do with Gulutzan utilizing him improperly on the left hand side. That said if he were to be traded it wouldn't come as any kind of great shock to me. The Flames have a deep defensive corps both in terms of active roster players and guys in the pipeline. So it only makes sense to tap into that depth for help elsewhere. Brodie is probably the most expendable of the top 4 as it stands, especially if they have any eye to converting him back to the right side.

My biggest fear is that the trade rumours around Hamilton come to something. That would be a big mistake IMO. He young, talented and probably not even at his full potential. He has an unsubstantiated reputation for being immature and/or bad in the room, but if we recall correctly some guy name Chris Pronger had that at one point too. I think he can and should be the longest tenured Flame of the current roster when all is said and done. Never say never though, if someone offered something totally insane for him, I'm sure Tree knows his value.

I suspect that not much happens. The GMs are a notoriously conservative bunch, and acting leaves them open to more criticism than inaction, so I suspect they're will be very little of interest going on.
 
I wondered about the Gulutzan effect on Brodie also. He and Giordano were such a great pair earlier. He may return to his previous play under the new coach...if he doesn't he'll probably be traded is my guess.
I'm a Brodie fan personally and thought his under performance in the last few seasons has a lot to do with Gulutzan utilizing him improperly on the left hand side. That said if he were to be traded it wouldn't come as any kind of great shock to me. The Flames have a deep defensive corps both in terms of active roster players and guys in the pipeline. So it only makes sense to tap into that depth for help elsewhere. Brodie is probably the most expendable of the top 4 as it stands, especially if they have any eye to converting him back to the right side.

My biggest fear is that the trade rumours around Hamilton come to something. That would be a big mistake IMO. He young, talented and probably not even at his full potential. He has an unsubstantiated reputation for being immature and/or bad in the room, but if we recall correctly some guy name Chris Pronger had that at one point too. I think he can and should be the longest tenured Flame of the current roster when all is said and done. Never say never though, if someone offered something totally insane for him, I'm sure Tree knows his value.

I suspect that not much happens. The GMs are a notoriously conservative bunch, and acting leaves them open to more criticism than inaction, so I suspect they're will be very little of interest going on.
 
Damn, not sure I like that trade, Fox is a very promising prospect...

I wondered about the Gulutzan effect on Brodie also. He and Giordano were such a great pair earlier. He may return to his previous play under the new coach...if he doesn't he'll probably be traded is my guess.
looks like Bodie and Gio are going to be back together again.
 
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Before I say how I feel about it, let's analyze this trade.

We traded:
Dougie and Ferls (combining for 38G, 47A, and 85P) AND a prospect. (At Harvard, he got 6G, 22A, and 28P in 29 games played)
Dougie has a cap hit of $5,750,000, and Ferland of $1,750,000.

We Got:
Lindholm and Hanifin (combining for 26G, 50A, and 76P).
Lindholm has a cap hit of $2.7M, and Hanifin of $832,000 (however he's an RFA next season).

All in all, we gave up NHL players who got 85pts last season + a prospect, and got NHL players who got 76P last season.
Dougie and Ferls' $7,500,000 combined cap hit will be replaced by Lindholm and Hanifin's ~$3,500,000, "saving" us about $4M/year.

I'm very sad about this trade in the sense that we had to let two great players with a lot of character go. Dougie, personally, is one of my top 5 favorite players all time. I think we definitely should've gotten more than what we got. We just did a 3 for 2 trade, and acquired arguably less than what we gave up. I'm sure Carolina could've thrown in some young forward or Round 2/3 draft pick to at least make it a 3-3 trade.
After all, Dougie is a top-scoring defensemen that we just lost, and Fox a solid prospect. Ferls was trending upwards in scoring too.

All that being said, I think since this is who we have now, we may as well start looking on the bright side. We certainly did get two talented players. As I said earlier, Dougs and Ferls had 85P, these guys had 76P. That's not too far behind, and they're younger, cheaper, and were arguably on a worse team. They're back with their old coach again, we'll have to wait and see if that's a good thing or not. I have very high expectations for these two, and I won't waste any time pitting all the blame on Treliving if this trade doesn't work itself out in the end, but for now I think we acquired some of the scoring depth we needed, and a young stud defense man to boot. We might also have enough cap space now to afford a Karlsson acquisition, or something similar.

EDIT:
I actually just did some more looking around. Lindholm shoots right, meaning he COULD theoretically fill that RW void on the first line with Gaudreau and Monahan.
And as I said earlier, we have some extra cap space and could probably afford Karlsson. That would almost definitely need Brodie traded or we'll be overloaded with d-men, which actually works out really well. Karlsson shoots right, Gio shoots left. They could fit together quite nicely on the first pair.

Imagine Gaudreau, Monahan, Lindholm, Gio, and Karlsson on the same shift.
 
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After some thinking, I'm not too cheesed about this move. Sad to see the two gone, but I think Lindholm can slot in nicely on the top line and @Meikkhaell is totally right on Hanifin being a stud. Also, they're RFAs. Who's to say either Hamilton or Ferland will stay with Carolina or that Fox even wanted to sign with Calgary? I think the trade is fairly even.

Peters said the pairings will likely be Gio/Brodie and Hamonic/Hanifin and if the season started tomorrow, he'd play Lindholm on the top line. I have high hopes for 2019. Please don't let me down again, Flames. My liver can't take it.

The cap space is exciting, and I can't imagine BT is finished working.
 
Sad to see the two guys move on, but hockey is a business. I think the extra $4Million dollars is the key, as it affords us another player who we have yet to see. If it allows to get a guy like Karlsson, then the trade is definitely worth it, but if not Karlsson, $4M still gets you a good player.
 
It sounds like Dougie wasn't well liked in the dressing room and wasn't much of a team guy, and it also sounds like Fox wanted to test free agency. So I think with that in mind, we got a pretty good return. Both Hanefin and Lindholm are RFA's, but apparently the Flames are very confident they will sign both, just hope it's for a good price.
 
I'm a little confused about them all suddenly saying Dougie wasn't a good fit in the locker room, I remember things like this and don't see how he could be vicious or hard to deal with. If anything, maybe he was too laid-back and too friendly? If you know what I mean? Like perhaps they wanted some players more intense and more willing to put everything on the line to win? Then again though, Dougie's numbers would suggest he's trying hard to win too. It's all just confusing. I've been doing lots of thinking about this whole thing too though, and I agree. I think it's a fair trade, or perhaps even in our favor. I'm counting down the days until the season starts.

I just hope for at least one more "blockbuster trade," if it included Karlsson that would be incredible but at least something to give us a little more scoring depth.
 
I don't really get it either, the on ice stuff should dictate. Fox considering free agency makes the deal OK to me though, Hanefin has a style that should work with Hamonic, and I really hope Lindholm can properly compliment the top line. I loved the heart Ferland played with, but he shouldn't have been on the top line. I expect his career to fizzle in Carolina.
 
When I was reading about the trade as it happened I was sure we got smoked, but now that the dust has settled a little I'm much more sanguine about it. I don't necessarily love it because I don't think we really realized full value on Dougie or Fox, but I think what we're getting back looks pretty strong. There's some indication that Hanafin could develop into a nearly as offensively capable as Dougie, while being a much more rounded and complete defender and there's no question that Lindholm will be an upgrade offensively on Ferland. I guess Tree's hands were tied on Fox. He sounds like a stud, but if he wasn't gonna sign here it's better to part ways. It just seems like such a rich throw in to cap the deal, but he'll probably walk on Carolina too so it is what it is.

The biggest opportunity in the trade is probably going to come in the form of contracts. If Tree can get Hanafin and Lindholm on cost controlled long term deals that will really payout well in the future. After seeing Carlson's deal Dougie's next one would be gigantic and there's a chance Ferland would have been overpayed.

I'm gonna miss Ferly too. He seems like a great character guy. I also don't think he should have been playing top line and I think he doesn't bring enough physicality to his game anymore. I get that he's probably cooled that off for health reasons and I respect that, but I also think it diminishes his on ice value. I would have like to have kept him as a depth winger, but c'est la vie. I wish him the best. I hope Treliving is working on something to bring another RW to the team.

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Speaking of players the team is after it's pretty much gospel now that they're pushing hard for Derek Ryan. There's a good piece on him at Flamesnation. He's had a long road to the NHL and made waves in a few European leagues before the Hurricanes grabbed him. He made his NHL debut at 29 and didn't become a full timer till 30. He's 31 now and will be turning 32 near mid-season. His age doesn't really bug me so long as he isn't shooting for some crazy contract. My biggest concern is that he seems to have been on of Peters' pets in Carolina and got a tonne of offensive zone starts. I just hope that his decent play can keep up as his utilization changes. He seems like he could be a good add.

If we got him, our lineup might look something like this:

Gaudreau - Monahan - Lindholm
Tkachuck - Backlund - Frolik
Bennett/Janko - Bennett/Janko - Foo
Lazar - Ryan - Brouwer

Giordano - Brodie
Hanafin - Hamonic
Kulak - Stone

Smith
Rittich

I think I'd rather see them buyout Brouwer than have him keep weighing down his line mates. That's also expecting a lot of Foo, but you never know. I wouldn't mind of the team parted with Brouwer and then went sniffing around guys like Thomas Vanek or Michael Grabner as hired guns on 1-years instead. I'd also love to see if a few of the guys in the system like Magiapane, Andersson, Kylington, Gillies and Parsons and maybe even Valimaki and Dube pushing for jobs on the big team.
 
I'm looking forward to seeing what Foo will do next season. From the limited time I saw him in action he looked good....I have a good feeling about him. I'd be very happy if the team parted ways with Brouwer, he's not a terrible player per se, but he's too much of a cap hit for his production, and it would be nice to get a young guy in there. I wasn't crazy when they signed Brouwer...yes he looked great in the playoffs the year before, but I've seen that story so many times over the years. Not sure why teams still fall for it.
 

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