ScorchStack Issue #16- rigor mortis corpse of Michael Stone
If you're going to take that as your Calgary Flames death metal band name, you have to credit us. Nevermind, we're actually going to do that now.
Can the fire Ol’ Blasty shoots out of his nose keep us warm through this long, hockey-less winter? We can only hope dear reader, we can only hope.
What’s inside?
Juuso Valimaki is the darling of the offseason, and the Flames should do anything they can to make him the darling of whenever the regular season happens.
Our favourite guest columnist is back to toughen up Johnny Gaudreau
Connor McDavid has a house to die for. Nothing ominous about that statement.
Since last week
ScorchStack #15 hit the shelves- Furbys, bad trades, Fresh Prince, and Barry Brust were under the ScorchStack’s lens. Yes, we do really miss hockey.
Our podcast has hit yet another snag. Turns out downloading funnier podcasts and editing in our own jokes is a no-no.
It's Time To Throw Juuso Valimaki Into The Deep End
Not literally. Unless it helps. In which case, literally
by Floob (@itlooksreal)
This is an important season for your Calgary Flames. The results coming out of 2021 are going to significantly shape the direction of the team going forward. Having made a big splash in free agency suggests that they intend to remain competitive, given that the other side of that coin likely results in finding a new home for Johnny Gaudreau and even possibly ushering in a rebuild of sorts. It’s a detour that the team would obviously love to avoid.
At first glance, the sum of the parts that make up the team’s blueline does not appear to be able to positively contribute to that goal. TJ Brodie is gone, and his replacement, Chris Tanev, is certainly not TJ Brodie. Mark Giordano is still a premier defenseman, and still the best on the team, but is 37 years old. We are starting to see the cracks in what seemed like an impenetrable shell, because death comes for us all one way or another. Nikita Nesterov, at best, is probably not very good. Noah Hanifin might be the most frustrating player in the league. Oliver Kylington remains unsigned, might not ever come back, and based on the playing time he’d receive if he did, you probably wouldn’t even notice a difference.
I refuse to acknowledge that Alex Petrovic even exists. I’m not even sure if I got his name right, and I don’t intend to find out.
Rasmus Andersson is indeed blossoming into the top pair defender everyone believed he would be when the Flames drafted him in 2015. But it’s unfair to expect him to shoulder the load completely on the backend and expect the team to compete at all. Also I think he would like me as a friend and I think that should be a thing we both work toward together, but that’s another conversation for another day.
Enter Juuso Valimaki: Calgary’s lottery ticket.
While there is no doubt that Valimaki will be an every day Flames defenseman the second the league resumes play, but prevailing wisdom suggests easing the 22 year old into the fray with the big club. Given that he hasn’t played an NHL game since 2019, and is just finding his way back to professional hockey after rehabbing a very serious ACL tear that kept him out of action for 2020, in a vacuum this feels like a prudent decision.
In reality, Calgary’s needs should preclude that philosophy. By pure necessity, I think it makes sense to test the limits of Valimaki’s potential from the first drop of the puck, inserting him into the Top 4 immediately. If the team really wants to get nuts, and I would very much like them to, they should even consider starting him on the top pair. This is absolutely a gamble, but I don’t think the Flames have the luxury of playing it safe while also attempting to ascend to a higher tier of hockey dominance.
There are several reasons why betting on Juuso Valimaki is going to be fruitful. The team drafted him 16th overall in 2017 to eventually be that player, and it’s important to know why they believed he could. He only recently turned 22 and if not for the season-ending injury sustained last year, this would already be his 4th pro season. Giving Valimaki an elevated role so young seems risky, but it’s something he’s already accustomed to. He was a prominent member of the Tri-City Americans as a 16 year old rookie, and has only thrived since then. He’s been a big minutes, all situations rearguard in perpetuity, and even in what was also another injury-shortened audition with the Flames in 2018-19, he made it impossible to take him out of the lineup, flirting with positive possession numbers while either dragging the rigor mortis corpse of Michael Stone around the ice, or figuring things out with fellow rookie Rasmus Andersson. He’s likely one of the bigger reasons why we’ve never truly seen Kylington get much of a chance in Calgary.
The biggest concern is ring rust (I’m going to start trying to drop random pro wrestling terms into these articles. Total heel move). It’s fair to wonder how Juuso’s body will hold up to the rigours of an NHL season after his leg exploded two years ago. If you’re reading this, you probably already know and I don’t need to tell you, but I’m going to anyway. Juuso Valimaki is going through something of a rehab assignment playing for Ilves in the Finnish Liiga, and he is setting that entire goddamn league on fire. While the NHL reckons with the idea of taking COVID-19 seriously, Juuso has been loaned out to play in his home country, and currently has paced his team to a tie for first in the standings. During that time, according to some accounts, Valimaki has not only established himself as the best defenseman in the league, but quite possibly the best player overall. As of this writing, Valimaki has played 19 games with Ilves, averaging 23 minutes a night, and is 6th in the league in scoring (first for defensemen). He’s also put 65 shots on goal, which I personally find very encouraging. Fire that rocket.
It’s true that the level of competition in Finland is not up to snuff of day in day out NHL action, but if the whole purpose of Valimaki being loaned to Ilves was to shake out the cobwebs, early returns suggests he is ready to return. That he is flourishing overseas is beyond encouraging, it’s also a sign that he’s ready for more. In Calgary, he does not have to be the best player in the league - he doesn’t even have to be the best defenseman on his team - but it’s a strong proof of concept for what he can do back home in the NHL.
All of this comes chained to the world’s most evergreen caveat that these results are baked into a small sample size, but hey, the 2021 NHL season is also going to be relatively brief, so why not allow your best defensive prospect every chance go on a PDO bender? He’ll be the most game-ready player on the team when everything kicks off anyway, so if you have a horse that’s ready to run fast, you might as well let it go.
We wouldn’t even need to posture about what Valimaki can bring to the table if we didn’t also have to assess what the rest of the blueline doesn’t. As mentioned, the Flames right now only have two established quality defensemen on the team, one of whom is probably going to need to be sheltered more and more as time goes on. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel great about promising more and more of the heavy minutes to Tanev or Hanifin when Andersson or Giordano are off the ice. Valimaki isn’t a proven entity by any stretch, but consider the alternatives.
Without Valimaki playing in the Top 4, we are almost certainly looking at a Noah Hanifin - Chris Tanev tandem. A lot of ink has already been spilled regarding Tanev being the withered husk of the player he used to be, and we’ve all watched Noah Hanifin for long enough to see that he’s never going to be anything close to the fifth overall pedigree, franchise defenseman Carolina thought they were acquiring in 2015. Having to endure that pairing is very likely going to be a pain point for the team and fans alike. Valimaki, or even (let’s get bold!) Mark Giordano could and should be better options on that pair, mitigating the damage caused by whichever of those two isn’t demoted to the third pair.
(Ultimately the best idea is to trade Hanifin for a capable right shot defender, but it seems less likely with every passing day that that is going to happen)
A top 4 of Gio-Andersson, Valimaki-Hanifin (or Valimaki-Andersson, Gio- Hanifin!) looks far more palatable to me. If you’re hellbent on your pairings having a left shot-right shot balance (I am not), then you can swap Hanifin for Tanev. I don’t think that’s a better division of equity on the blueline, but at that point, who gives a shit? Give your three best defensemen the ice time, it’s that simple. It also doesn’t force Valimaki to silently toil away with probably Nesterov for 12 minutes a night on the third pair, which I think ultimately is important for Juuso both now and in the future. Man, the Flames have some garbage defensemen.
He’s also the better option for the power play. Between both units, the team is likely to utilize a forward on the point, leaving, again, three spots for your best defensemen. If Rasmus patrols the top PP tandem, running Andersson and Valimkai on the second unit looks fantastic from where I’m sitting. I’d throw him on the PK over Tanev as well. He’s trending in the direction of franchise defenseman, might as well use this extremely weird time to play him like one.
Obviously all of this is risk inherent and not guaranteed to work out, but I believe the potential in Valimaki warrants giving it a try. If the gamble falls flat, well, Jacob Markstrom thrived in Vancouver playing behind a rag tag group of defensemen who are even worse than what Calgary employs today, so at the very worst they have a 6 million dollar safety net to keep the team from falling.
The Flames need to toughen up Johnny Gaudreau- and that's why they shouldn't give him the Covid-19 vaccine
By Francis Ericsson
Any resemblance to any other controversial Flames writer is purely coincidental
It’s been a long, tough pandemic for all of us.
But there’s an end in sight.
With news of Coronavirus vaccines getting the green light, the world will move back to normal. The implications for the hockey world are obvious: players on the ice, fans in the stands, borders open, no quarantines. We’ll have a few weird seasons trying to get back on track, but it’s almost entirely positive for the hockey world.
But not completely positive.
The coronavirus vaccine will offer safety and security for NHL players. But do we really want that? It’s not just the old guys in the room talking about this, everyone knows it: NHL players have become too soft. With the modern NHL lacking toughness, players don’t have anyone to hold them to a standard and force them to work harder. Could you imagine if your team’s best player was one of these players who took everything for granted?
Flames fans don’t need to imagine, they know all too well, unfortunately. Of course, I’m talking about the Flames’ “star” Johnny Gaudreau.
In this era of millennial entitlement, there’s been no player with a greater sense of “I deserve this” than Gaudreau. His disappearing act in the playoffs suggests that he thinks his regular season stats earn him the Stanley Cup already, and his “struggles” in the 2019-20 season tell me that he’s just coasting off of reputation now.
If the Flames aren’t trading him, then they should be holding him accountable. They need to say “no more” and provide fire in the tiny belly of Gaudreau. Yes, they need to withhold the upcoming coronavirus vaccine from their star player.
I acknowledge that this might get literally everybody mad at me, but hear me out.
Since inoculation became commonplace, people have been receiving vaccines for any number of diseases. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, quite the opposite. It’s the foundation of our society’s health.
But there’s a difference between getting immunized and believing that you can’t ever get sick. The second one is Gaudreau, at least metaphorically.
Gaudreau’s playing style is the most irresponsible and arrogant I’ve ever seen in my years. Whenever the Flames have the puck, he wants it, and he wants to score. Whenever the Flames are on defence, he doesn’t want to do anything. And in the post-game media scrums, which is what really counts, he doesn’t want to be held accountable for causing the team to lose.
If he never receives the vaccine, I figure that those issues can be corrected. If the Flames are on defence, Gaudreau will not want to go to the bench and be around all those germs. He’ll be forced to play defence for once in his life, paying back the shifts he took off since he joined the club.
Back on offence, he’ll have to enforce social distancing at all times. How? By passing the puck and distributing it to his teammates. No one will come close to Gaudreau if he doesn’t have the puck. He can’t use his “look at me” dekes and “I need attention” moves if there’s no one around him. We’re humbling him and making him a much more effective player.
And we can’t forget how placing him in fear of his health at all times will teach the youngster (he is 27, but in terms of leadership, 12) some adversity. Maybe finally he’ll rise to the level the playoffs demand of him. I think we can all agree that Gaudreau is missing the mature winner’s mentality that separates the greats from the goofs in the annals of NHL history. You can’t get that mindset by taking one quick fix around it. If we immunize him from COVID-19, we’re essentially giving him a participation trophy.
And the Flames are interested in real trophies.
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Reviewing Connor McDavid's serial killer house
He’s a serial killer
By ramz (@raminashlah)
It’s Wednesday, you know what that means! I get something out at 11 pm Tuesday night and make Tibs stay up later to include it in the newsletter.
This week, I would have loved to review Connor McDavid’s house, which has extreme serial killer energy. Apparently his girlfriend designed it, but she’s supposed to be an interior designer? I’m not sure, but she’s very clearly never designed a home anybody has ever actually lived in before. By the way, pictures of his house were revealed earlier this year, but I guess many people just now found it.
Also, because people were making fun of a millionaire’s home, because he’s a millionaire and can afford nice things, he (the millionaire) decided to be a baby about it and copyright the pictures of his house so we couldn’t have our fun online with it. So for this, because I don’t want to get copyrighted, I decided to look up pictures of houses that are very similar to McDavid’s and review those instead. Enjoy!
Office
McDavid has a home office for some reason, not quite sure what work he’s doing there, but anyway. This is the most similar one I could find! Sorry for the poor photo, it was part of a cool house tour and I had to take a quick screenshot of it. This photo can be found on this site, titled “Eerie Things Going on at Ted Bundy's Childhood Tacoma Home”. Not sure who this “Ted Bundy” fellow is, but looks like he and McDavid have lots in common!
Kitchen
Ignoring the other elements, this bar is very similar to McDavid’s, with his long island and the many bar stools side by side. It’s practically the same! This photo can be found here, titled “A museum of Jack the Ripper history.” Pretty cool that a similar place can be found in a museum! Maybe we were too quick to judge his house after all.
Bedroom
The next room is the bedroom! Now, it’s quite hard to find a bedroom that looks identical to McDavid’s since his is, unique I guess, but I found the closest match. McDavid’s room had nothing in it but literally a bed in the middle of the room for some reason. All this bedroom needs is the bed in the middle of the room and some black sheets and it looks basically the same! Also, don’t mind the bloodstain on the wall behind the bed, don’t know what that’s about haha. This bedroom belongs to one “Jeffrey Dahmer”.
Ed note: I found this bed as well with a blanket that says a Dahmer quote on it, and this bed actually does look like McDavid’s lol.
Game room
Another part of McDavid’s house was his game room which just featured a pool table and an extremely eerie-looking basketball court. Anyway, it was hard finding a pool table that matched the one in McDavid’s house, but I think I got it! Even though this one is in a bar, I thought it looked quite similar! This picture is from a Reddit thread titled, “Jury Room (Edmund Kemper Hangout) pt 2 the interior”. Don’t know who this Edmund Kemper guy is, but he likes playing pool too! Hey, maybe he and McDavid know each other? That’d be pretty neat!
Living Room
Something I enjoyed about McDavid’s place was his living room! It was just two big couches in front of a fireplace. I found something quite similar!
As you can see, there are some couches and they’re just in front of the fireplace! No TV or anything, a place where friends can come hang out and just have a nice chat. This is from this site titled “Home on John Wayne Gacy's old property, where 29 bodies were found, selling for $459G”.
That’s all for today! As I said, it’s a little difficult finding things that look exactly like McDavid’s, so I hope I did his house justice!
Up Next Week
Full breakdowns of Flames prospects Josh Nodler and Mitchell Mattson, who are playing on TSN this weekend
Just kidding, what do you think this is.
Which Harry Potter characters are the Calgary Flames players? Again, read the bullet point above