The best way to start off may be to establish that the 07–08 Calgary Flames weren’t a bad team. They contended for the NW title for awhile in mid-season. They scored a couple more goals than they gave up. And they made the play-offs despite playing in a tough division and competitive conference.

The best way to continue may be to be to acknowledge that the 07–08 Calgary Flames weren’t a good team either. They had the second worst GD of any WC play-off squad. They didn’t even have average special teams. And they squeaked into the play-offs by the hairs of their chiny-chin-chin.

Ironically, it’s been Sutter’s flavor of “go for it” that has sunk the team into mediocrity since 03/04, and painted the franchise into the cap-strapped corner it’s in now. His tendency to fill roster spots with known commodities – ex-Sutterites and veterans – has bloated the roster’s budget and bled the team of cheap talent. As Darryl has gone about locking up key pieces to long-terms deals and exponentially more expensive contract extensions, he’s also surrounded them with slowing vets (Nilson, Yelle, Primeau, Eriksson, Aucoin, Amonte) and dubious reclamation projects (Zyuzin, Friesen), many of whom for multi-year, multi-million dollar deals. The results, both this season and last, were two-fold:

1. Cap-efficient roster—pricey vets, fewer rookies
2. Hostile development environment.

Sutter has done a great job of identifying and locking up the core big boys during his time here. Alternatively, he’s done a fairly terrible job of identifying and installing good-value guys at the roster’s edges. Which is why the results have been so average the last few years.

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.

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.

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 offence 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 defencemen) and concurrently suggests how good the team could have been with a few more competent supporting pieces.

Alex Tanguay is a difference maker at ES. He was the second-best forward on the team, after Jarome Iginla, at 5-on-5 during his time here. He outscored whoever he played against, and he did it no matter who his linemates were. He made that 2nd line work last year. Absent Tanguay (or Iginla), Conroy/Nolan probably sink like a stone.

The Flames don’t have a Tanguay to carry their reclamation project this year. The options for Keenan are, therefore:

1. Play Bertuzzi with Iginla and hope he doesn’t impede him.
2. Play Bertuzzi with Lombardi against the softest possible competition.

Either way, I think Iginla will be seeing the toughest competition on the team (unless some kind of shut-down line can be soldered together out of Conroy, Moss, Bourque, Glencross, Nystrom). The probable result is a reduction in Iggy’s outscoring since one of the inescapable truths of hockey is as the quality of opponent goes up, you tend to score less and tend to get scored on more (excepting Nik Lidstrom).

The question will be: can the new 2nd line and re-vamped bottom six make up for the loss? Proposition one is, at best, a coin-flip, depending on how manic Iron Mike is with managing the bench. Lombardi, Boyd (?) and Bert/Cammalleri. You’re basically betting on simultaneous growth from a couple of players (Boyd and Lombardi), not to mention the Bertuzzi injury/effectiveness uncertainty if he lands on that unit. Long odds, I’d say, for them to be anything better than even at ES.

The good news is the bottom six is much improved. Gone are total defectives like Godard and Smith. Gone too are offensive zone voids like Yelle and Nilson (probably). With the addition of Bourque and Glencross and the demotion of Conroy, the “lesser” forwards shouldn’t be the black hole they were last year. There’s also the possibility of Eric Nystrom improving (although I personally don’t hold out much hope in that regard). In any case, the bottom of the rotation should be faster, more capable in the good end of the rink and less apt to get scored on this coming year.

While pretty much anyone outside of Cory Cross would represent a leap up from Bubba (Eriksson), none of the remaining candidates represent more than a marginal improvement. I say that without knowing the degree to which Mark Giordano developed overseas last year, of course. I’ve heard he was a top pairing defender for his club with Danny Markov and his selection to Team Canada in the World Championships this spring was a good sign. However, without really knowing who he played against or how he played (and the degree to which that will translate to the NHL), it’s difficult to confidently and rationally project him in a top role for next year.

Here’s what we got:

Regehr – Sarich

Phaneuf – Vandermeer (?)

Aucoin – Giordano

Warrener (?), Eriksson (?), Pardy (?)

Here’s what I’d like to see:

Regehr – Phaneuf

Sarich – ? (Vandermeer)

Aucoin – Giordano

Eriksson, Warrener

One of my standing assumptions heading into the new season is the Flames will take a step back in terms of even-strength play. The prediction primarily springs from the loss the of Alex Tanguay, Calgary’s second best ES player the last few years. Now, a number of things could prove this assumption false come October: a Kiprusoff bounce back, a sizeable step forward by Dion Phaneuf and/or any of the new guys, etc. That said, let’s proceed assuming the Flames will in fact be worse at ES next season. Meaning the team will have to drive results (ie; goal differential) some other way.