The GM says the toughest calls he'll have to make this summer aren't necessarily tied to a list of unrestricted free agents that includes Kristian Huselius, Owen Nolan, Stephane Yelle, Jim Vandermeer, David Hale and Curtis Joseph.
"Those aren't the tough decisions," said Sutter. "It's the guys already under contract who aren't earning what they're making. There's a number of those guys that, based on their careers, they're third- and fourth-line guys. Well, every one of our forwards in Quad Cities (the Flames' top farm club) can play on our third and fourth lines."
- Calgary Herald via Matt.
The Black Hole
During the slow summer months last off-season I put together a player typology post that detailed the four basic kinds of forwards available in the NHL: the Big guns, the soft comp eaters, the quellers and the even-stevens. I neglected to include a fifth, rather prevalent type: the lead weights. It is this latter kind of player that dominated the bottom of the Flames roster this year. And it's those guys Sutter is implicating above.
As such, allow me to present the black hole: Wayne Primeau, Marcus Nilson, Eric Godard, Stephane Yelle, Matthew Lombardi, David Moss, Mark Smith, Eric Nystrom and Dustin Boyd all took turns at the end of the rotation. Five of those players were gross liabilities at even-strength (Primeau, Godard, Smith, Nystrom, Boyd) to varying degrees and three of the remaining four players couldn't score with a two-four of gin at the prom (Nilson, Yelle, Moss). Matthew Lombardi was the only player of the 9 (!) mentioned that managed more than 10 goals or 30 points. He spent a lot of time skating with Primeau, Yelle, Nystrom and Boyd so his underlying numbers took a beating.
Most teams in the NHL have a couple players they have to hide at ES. They are your scrappers (Godard), your projects (Nystrom) and your raw rookies (Boyd). Ideally, a club has 3 or less of these guys in the line-up at any one time. Any more, and sheltering them becomes a significant chore.
There were many times during the regular season that the Flames had all five of the lead weights listed above (Primeau et al) dressed at the same time. Moss was injured a lot and Nilson spent most of the season as Keenan's pressbox punching bag, meaning one of Yelle or Lombardi was often tasked with trying to keep the shaky raft (sporting a couple of leaks and 5 anchors) afloat.
The result? Two de facto "4th lines", each with no chance of out-scoring the opposition and with little chance of playing them to evens.
The lack of an effective third unit was felt at the top of the roster as well, particularly by the Tanguay/Conroy/Nolan combination. The Flames "2nd line" was given the unenviable assignment of shutting down the other team's big guns WHILE providing some secondary offense behind the Iggy line. Tanguay et al. faced the toughest competition on the team with the obvious effect being a dampening of their offensive stats. And Conroy/Nolan are hardly scoring wizards in the first place.
When your secondary scoring unit is also your shut-down unit because everyone else below them can't be trusted to do either well -- you're in trouble. That the Flames were slightly above average this year in terms of ES scoring (145 GF, 12th) has everything to do with Jarome Iginla (65 ESP, 3rd, only Flame in the top 30) and Dion Phaneuf (26 ES points, 6th among defensemen) and concurrently suggests how good the team could have been with a few more competent supporting pieces.
Chasing Leopold
Only a few short seasons ago the Flames blueline was considered one of the best in the league. Think back to 05-06. Leopold, Regehr, Ference, Warrener, Phaneuf and Hamrlik were the top 6 defenders that year. Richie Regehr and Mark Giordano each got a cup of coffee that year as well.
This season? Regehr, Sarich, Phaneuf, Eriksson, Aucoin, Hale and Warrener (and Vandermeer) was the blueline squadron, with half of them doing favorable impressions of the key-stone cops on most nights. All for a bigger price-tag, naturally.
The defense was arguably the weakest part of the club this year. Like the forwards, the bottom of the rotation was littered with guys that either couldn't outplay the opposition no matter how soft it was (Warrener, Hale, Eriksson) or were poor value (Aucoin) or both (Warrener, Eriksson). And, like the forwards, there were many nights when the difference makers (Regehr, Phaneuf, Sarich) couldn't make up for their lackluster brethren.
The back-end's degradation since the onset of his tenure here is probably the strongest indictment of Sutter's management up till now. What was once young, effective and cheap has become older, ineffective and expensive.
Part of that has to do with the premium put on defenders since the lock-out. Ed Jovonovski is scheduled to make $6.5M next year for example. The escalating salary cap and high demand for blueliners likely ensured an inexorable increase in costs for that category of player.
Of course, the problem isn't that the Flames defense corps is high-priced relative to itself two seasons ago. Rather, the problem lies in the fact that it's expensive when compared to other clubs in the league right now; all of whom were/are subject to the same market forces as Calgary. Only 7 clubs had pricier bluelines than the Flames this season (Tor, Ana, Bos, Det, Edm, Mtl, Phi) and that was due almost entirely to Phaneuf playing under an entry level contract. With his and Regehr's raises kicking in next season (up to 6.5M and 4M respectively), the team is scheduled to have the heaviest back-end, cash and cap wise, in the entire NHL come September. Keep in mind, The approximate cap-value (21.95M) as it stands right now does not include replacements for Hale or Vandermeer , both of whom are set to become free agents July 1.
That figure would be forgivable if the defense had the performance and results to match it's big price tag. But, as immobile and bad with the puck as they were this year, there's a very real chance they'll be even worse next season: Eriksson, Aucoin and Warrener are all good bets to take a step or two backwards. Regehr and Sarich are probably at their ceilings now. Only Phaneuf has room and opportunity for real improvement. While there's talk in the media of coaxing Mark Giordano back into the fold and re-signing Vandermeer, their additions will only be beneficial if they occur in concert with a couple of deletions (Im looking at you Rhett and Bubba). The back-end not only has to get better in terms of skill and results going forward, it simultaneously has to get more efficient (ie: cheaper) as well. That's a fairly tall order, and one potentially beyond Sutter if we're to judge him based on his past efforts. When I consider the task at hand it invariably conjures that classic Bullwinkle line:
"Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit outta my hat!"
The Decline
I recently identified the three great tragedies of the Flames middling results from the last couple of seasons:
- Wasting back-to-back MVP type performances from Iginla.
- Frittering away Phaneuf's high value entry-level contract.
- Frittering away Kipper's high value median-level contract.
The final point may be the most tragic considering Kipper's downward trend since becoming a Flame: his yearly averaged SV% has steadily decreased since 03-04, culminating in this seasons throughly average .906 number. Whereas Phaneuf and Iginla will continue to deliver value for their contracts, Kipper is poised to become another expensive, un-tradable anchor should his slide into mediocrity continue. His just-okay results this year were a significant contributor to the teams just-okay results. If the unflappable Fin doesn't experience a bit of renaissance in 08-09, it may not matter what else Sutter does this summer - his team will be doomed to remain at the edges of play-off contention.
