August has come and gone. The leaves are already turning yellow and brown. Now that Giordano has left for the Plutonian shores of Russia, I'm thinking the Flames are just about done as far as off-season roster changes are concerned. With training camp fast approaching it's time to detail those changes as well as my personal evaluations of each:
What I liked:
The extensions -
Sutter had Iginla and Regehr inked to new contract extensions the first week of July. That's some good work. Both are significant contributors to the team's success and both were had at or below market value. The move(s) firms up the club's core and takes some serious anxiety and guess work out of the Franchise's upcoming 07/08 off-season. There'll be no Ryan Smyth type debacle round these parts come February...
Lombardi re-signing -
Lombardi's deal is looking like a steal compared to many of the deals signed by his cohorts this summer (*ahem* Dustin Penner). With a cap hit of 1.817, one can easily imagine Lombardi outperforming this contract, especially in the 2nd and 3rd years of the deal. Good stuff.
Sarich UFA Signing -
It's arguable whether this contract is inflated or not (3.6M/year) mainly because it's hard to quantify the contributions of a pure shut-down guy like Sarich. However, keep in mind Sarich was one of the younger guys available on the market AND he did a majority of the heavy lifting in Tampa Bay the last few years without being too deep under water. That's a significant accomplishment considering a.) Sarich doesn't score much, and b.) the Lightning's goaltending/defensive deficiencies. He played a lot of ES and SH time for Tampa Bay last year and should be an excellent partner for the Flames own defensive stalwart, Robyn Regehr. Combined, the two are 440 pounds of mean, hard-hitting muscle on the back-end. They won't score a lot of goals, but they won't allow many goals against either.
Hell, if this goes the way I think it will, this deal might actually look like a bargain down the road after all.
Playfair firing -
I'm going to let the results determine whether I'm happy about Keenan being hired or not, so I'll restrict my appreciation to the corollary event - Playfair's demotion. By the end of the season last year, I was an outspoken critic of Nervous Jimmy: he mishandled a number of players, he couldn't seem to execute any kind of cohesive strategy (particularly on the road) and didn't seem to command any respect from the players. In fact, it's a well-established rumor he was referred to as "Sutter lite" in the dressing room.
After the relatively disappointing season and now the first game debacle (which, quite honestly, could have been a double-digit raping had Kipper not been the lone bright spot for the Calgary squad) I have warring voices in my head in regards to the rest of the series. A cynical part of me wants the Flames to drop the next 3 straight and bow out in humiliating fashion. Such a turn of events would no doubt result in the cleaving of Nervous Jimmy's overripe melon by the inexorable descent of the ever-present Sword of Damocles that has been perilously dangling above him all season.
I wrote back in April in regards to the Flames spiritual de-pantsing at the hands of the Red Wings. So complete was the team's collapse down the stretch that I was certain Playfair would be a summer time casualty. And thankfully, I was right.
What I didn't like:
Primeau Signing -
Wayne Primeau is the prototypical checking vet: big body, works hard, modest skills. He can't really contribute much at the offensive end and is neither fast enough nor crafty enough to be an elite checker. He CAN win some face-offs and crash bodies in the corners. He can also kill penalties in a pinch.
Let's give some context to my assertions. Primeau's PGP pace over 646 games is a measly 0.27. That would have disqualified him from being considered a "contributor" (or, rather, counted as an NHLer at all) in my look at draft picks a few weeks back. That's bad. Primeau has never been a shut-down guy during his tenure in the league either and his cumulative career +/- rating is -88. Meaning he doesn't typically see tough competition, but is still apt to end up under water anyways (to be fair, he spent a lot of his earlier career on bad Sabres, Lightning and Penguins teams). His career high for goals is 11. His career high for points is 29.
So what're the Flames getting for their 1.4M over the next 3 seasons? Not a hell of a lot. Chances are, there are about 4 or 5 rookies who will play in Quad Cities this season (and onward) that could replace Primeau's contributions pretty easily and for a slightly cheaper price tag. None of them would be as BIG, but big is only an asset when it actually helps in producing results...which really isn't the case here.
In the end, the contract isn't prohibitively high or long...but it is, in my humble evaluation, needless. With this signing, Sutter plugged a roster hole that could've been taken by a youngster at a fraction of the price. Concurrently, the Flames lose out on some cap value and the ability to develop a prospect.
Adrian Aucoin trade -
I've gone back and forth on this one during the summer. I like that Andrei Zyuzin, probably the worst Flame last year, was ushered out of town through this swap. And I like that Aucoin has been a big minutes player in his career previously.
What I don't like is the fact he hasn't been a big minutes guy recently. In fact, he's been pretty much awful for the last 2 seasons. Injured, slow, bad, useless. The Hawks traded him for a terrible Andrei Zyuzin for a reason.
With that in mind, this looks like a bad gamble on Sutter's part. The problem is, Aucoin isn't simply a 6th defensemen insurance policy - with the departures of Hammer and Stuart, Calgary needs him to adequately fill a top 4 roll on the club. Something he hasn't been able to do for awhile now. In addition, his $4M/year contract is pretty fat and it continues through 08/09. If he can't deliver value on that number (and chances are he can't), the Flames will be stuck looking for a top 4 contributor again relatively soon, with the added bonus of trying to shoehorn another salary into a rapidly bloating budget. Aucoin won't be tradable at that cap-hit if he stumbles again, so the Flames will have no choice but to pay him the dollars and hope his knees give out for good so they can get him on long-term IR (think Rathje in Philly).
Losing Giordano -
I've said a lot on this already, so I'll re-state that the loss of Giordano to Russia isn't a grave one, but it does piss me off. The Flames looked like they were developing a 3 pairing, PP kind of guy in the mold of Tom Preissing last year. Now they have a pricier 32 year old journeyman in his stead. On a long enough time-line, that's a bad trade off.
Warrener Remains -
Rhett Warrener was pretty bad last season. He was chronically injured and couldn't seem to keep up with the play half the time. His primary asset, body-checking, pretty much abandoned him while his various weaknesses took over his game. He was usually the slowest player on the ice and had trouble making outlet passes. At 2.4M/year, Warrener has become a liability to the team. His contributions don't match his cap hit and I was hoping that Sutter would do whatever it took to get Rhett's dollars off the books this off-season. It was no to be, it seems.
If Warrener is healthy and effective next year, he might be a useful player. I don't have a lot of hope of that happening, however. At least we have Eriksson to fill in when appropriate...I guess...
Undecided:
Owen Nolan signing -
I would have preferred a younger, more able bodied plug for the 2nd line RW position. The Flames are mighty thin on the right side after Iginla, so I was hoping Sutter would snag one of the few decent available RWers from the UFA market to shore up that organizational weakness.
To his credit, Sutter got Nolan for pretty cheap and it's only a one year contract. If this experiment doesn't work out, not a lot of long-term harm done. In addition, Nolan put together a decent, if not spectacular, season with a pretty bad Phoenix team last year, which would suggest he isn't completely out of gas. Better players on a better team might just equate to a decent year for the aging warrior. If so, he's a welcome one year addition. If not, David Moss might just get another chance to play amongst the top 6 again.
Keenan Hiring -
As mentioned, the jury is still out on this topic. By mid-season, Im sure we'll have a clear indication where this team is headed with Keenan at the helm: top of the mountain or depths of the sea.
