Calgary Flames: Five things to look forward to in 2018-19

A new season is just around the corner! For the Calgary Flames, plenty has changed this off-season. Let’s check out what to look forward to this season.

New year, new me, right?

It’s season-opener day and I can barely contain myself! I don’t quite know why seeing how the Calgary Flames will most likely lose 6-1 anyways. I’d love to be able to say “Just kidding!” but who are we kidding? The Flames currently have the longest active season opener winless streak with eight in a row, since the start of the 2010-11 season. Second place is the Buffalo Sabres with five. So…. let’s turn that around, please.

With the season right around the corner (literally), a lot has changed. I think this is the most amount of change the Flames have done in one off-season in quite a few years. From what I can remember, at least. There are 11 players from last season’s opener that won’t be there tonight.

With a new season, while there are still some worrisome factors (I’m looking at you, Mike Smith), there’s a lot to look forward to! The Flames have completely upgraded their forwards, their bottom-six is barely even recognizable anymore, they have some new bench bosses, and the blue-line has made a couple adjustments as well.

With all that being said, let’s take a look at five things to look forward to this season!

*Warning: We are not to be blamed if these don’t pan out and we will all pretend this was never written.

5. Mark Giordano and TJ Brodie reunited

Reunited and it feeeeels so gooooooood.

Mark Giordano and TJ Brodie will be reunited to start the season off. While Brodie has been struggling the last couple of seasons, Gio has been quite consistent. In fact, he and Dougie Hamilton (RIP) were one of the best duos in the league last season. Since being paired up together at the start of the 2016-17 season, Dougie credited a lot of his success to Giordano and on Gio being a great leader.

We saw a great example of this when Gio and Brodie were paired up together in 2014-15 and were a great tandem together. One of our writers here, Brett Boyle, wrote a few weeks ago about how they should play together again, and here is what he showed about it:

Together: Giordano – 143 games, 32 goals, 72 assists, +8 Brodie – 151 games, 17 goals, 69 assists, +19 Apart: Giordano – 163 games, 25 goals, 52 assists, +22 Brodie – 155 games, 10 goals, 58 assists, -32 The most alarming difference here is obviously the change in +/- for TJ Brodie. Giordano actually has a better +/- when he is not paired with Brodie, showing both the struggles Brodie can have in the defensive zone as well as the brilliance of Gio.

Although I’m not the biggest fan of using +/- as a stat because it doesn’t accurately describe a player’s ability, we can see how offensive they can be together. And a big problem for the Calgary Flames last season was their inability to produce offence, being the fifth lowest-scoring team in the league with 216 goals.

Last season, both Gio and Brodie struggled with their offence, with both hitting the lowest they have in years.

When the two were paired together in 2014-15, while the whole team, in general, didn’t do all that well when it came to puck-possession, Gio and Brodie did their best when they were paired together. Given they didn’t spend a lot of time apart (Gio spent less than 100 minutes away from Brodie at 5on5 and more than 1000 minutes with him), Gio did worst (among all skaters) when he wasn’t paired with Brodie, with a mere 43% CF% (stats taken from naturalstattrick.com).

Brodie’s numbers are the same, among all skaters he played at least 20 minutes with (5on5), his CF% was the worst when he wasn’t paired with Gio, at a 38.85%.

Maybe being reunited again after spending a couple years apart will be what they each need. And Brodie can try to find his game again.

All I know is that I miss the 2014-15 season and any chance to try and recreate that magic is exciting in my books.

4. New bench bosses

This off-season, Brad Treliving said “See ya!” to Glen Gulutzan and co. and brought in a completely new set of bench bosses. Gulutzan, along with assistant coaches Paul Jerrard and Dave Cameron, said goodbye to Calgary. While I wasn’t totally opposed with this decision (especially with letting go Cameron, good riddance), it wasn’t completely Gulutzan’s fault. And Jerrard was actually a great penalty-killing coach, so he was basically only guilty by association.

Treliving brought in new head coach Bill Peters, who previously coached the Carolina Hurricanes for the last four seasons. Although the Canes didn’t qualify for the post-season in either of those seasons, we have to give Peters the benefit of the doubt. I’ve already mentioned this a few months ago, but he didn’t have quality goaltending, his top centerman put up just 19 goals, and the team spent $15 million below the salary cap. $15 million can get you a pretty competent second line. In fact, if Elias Lindholm stays on the top line with Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan, that’s just slightly under $18 million for the top line.

It’s quite difficult for a coach to be successful when they aren’t given the right tools to succeed. And it seems like Peters isn’t messing around. While Gulutzan was a “nice guy”, that was somewhat of his downfall as well. With Peters, he decided that Curtis Lazar needed to go on waivers (finally), he’s sticking with the quality penalty-killing partners the Calgary Flames used last season and is sticking with what works rather than trying everything new. It seems like he’s learning from his mistakes in Carolina and is actually listening.

On top of Peters, they brought on Ryan Huska from Stockton and Geoff Ward from the New Jersey Devils. Ward is an excellent powerplay coach, and with all the powerplay struggles the team faced last season, this is what they needed. Huska has been somewhat credited with the development of the Flames prospects and will be working with them closely.

While a new set of coaches isn’t going to solve everything, it sure was a great start to the off-season.

2. Youngblood

On Monday morning, the Calgary Flames announced that F Dillon Dube and D Juuso Valimaki would be making the opening-night roster and Flames fans were ecstatic. Dube has arguably been one of the most impressive prospects and Valimaki already has the poise that makes him look like he belongs in the NHL. It was also clear the coaching staff loved these two seeing how they spent the most amount of time on the ice.

Along with those two, there’s also Austin Czarnik joining the team who was one of the best AHL players last season.  There’s also this that should absolutely warm your hearts:

Last season, while wearing the A for the Kelowna Rockets of the WHL, Dube racked up 38 goals and 84 points in 53 games. He also captained Team Canada at the World Juniors where he had three goals and five points to lead them to a gold medal. And he finished the season off by playing with the Flames farm team, the Stockton Heat, for their final few games of the season. During the preseason, like I already mentioned, Dube put up four goals and six points in seven games, along with a 58.39% CF% and11 scoring chances.

Valimaki was also a captain at the World Juniors, leading Team Finland, where he had one goal and four points in five games. Last season, he played with the Tri-City Americans of the WHL where he had 14 goals and 45 points in 43 games. Like I also mentioned, during the preseason, he put up two goals and five points in seven games and averaged 10:32 TOI per game. The team also had the most amount of shot attempts with him on the ice (5on5) with 102 (125 all strengths), however, he did play more than anybody else, so that’s understandable. Individually, he still had 24 shot-attempts (28 all strengths) and had eight scoring chances.

It’s also not often that defencemen make it to the NHL fresh out of their freshman year, so it seems like the Flames definitely have something special in this one.

It’ll definitely be exciting for these two tonight. But the most excited will be Flames fans, only because now both Matthew Tkachuk and Juuso Valimaki have made the NHL before Olli Juolevi (sorry Canucks fans).

1. Finally, the forwards seem complete

Last, but certainly not least, we have the entire forwards lineup. For the first time in years, the Calgary Flames seem like they finally have a full, solid forward lineup group. The Flames have definitely upgraded their forwards and finally, not only have a solid top-nine for the first time in a while, but actually seem to have a complete set of all four lines.

Unlike last season where the team was essentially like, “Well, Troy Brouwer didn’t quite work out on the top line with Monahan and Gaudreau… but Curtis Lazar isn’t exactly fitting well either… I guess Micheal Ferland, although inconsistent, will work out here.” Now, it seems like the Flames actually have plenty of options to choose from.

For the season opener, Elias Lindholm will start on that top line. But it appears as though James Neal or Dillon Dube can work on that line as well. Same goes with the second line – for now, Michael Frolik is on a line with Matthew Tkachuk and Mikael Backlund but put Austin Czarnik or James Neal and that could be a great second line as well. Even Tkachuk can fit well on the first line with Monahan and Gaudreau.

They have plenty of options to choose from, and much more than they’ve had in years. It’s an exciting time for Flames offence, especially since this team struggled last year with offence. And there will be guys – like Dube and Czarnik – who will be trying to prove themselves worthy of staying up at the NHL level and attempt to generate as much offence as they can.

No matter what, it seems as though Flames fans are finally being blessed with a full forward group.

What are you most excited for this season?