There’s a few Odd Future verses I could put here and change “free Earl” for “free Ramz.” I have been advised to not do that.
What’s inside?
We invite you to participate in a highly scientific study: are you a Matthew or a Brady?
Matthew Tkachuk is in the news again, and this time he’s antagonizing /record scratch Calgary Flames fans?!?!?!? Floob breaks down all of these weird rumours coming from inside the Dome.
Sean Monahan: trade him too? Maybe not? Perhaps?
The AHL’s back, and boy does it matter less than ever.
Dillon Dube: biblical hero?
Since last week
Do you really wanna review what happened last week?
No seriously, do you?
Fine, I guess we’ll look back at it again. The Flames got dummied by the Canucks 5-1, lost a dull 2-1 decision against Edmonton, and then lost to the Oilers again by a score of [redacted]. They did beat the Leafs 3-0 though, so that was nice.
That [redacted] loss inspired Scorchie Mike to call in to Sportsnet 960 at 1 AM, dropping the most anticipated late-night radio hit of the year. You can listen to it here. Further episodes of Scorchstack Radio will air whenever 960 decides to unblock our numbers.
Big Monday Thing? Big Monday Thing
Which Tkachuk Brother Are You?
Take this quiz to find out. 100% accurate
By Ramz (free Ramina)
Hey everyone, I may be (hopefully temporarily) suspended from Twitter for being too cold in the city of Calgary, but that won’t stop me from bringing you the freshest content.
The Flames play the Senators for the first time tomorrow, and then they’ll play nine more times until the end of the season. That’s a lot of Tkachuk. Too much, some people may say. You may be wondering, “Hey, I wonder which Tkachuk I’m most similar to.” Well, look no further.
I’ve created this quiz that should take you no more than five minutes to complete that will tell you if you’re either Matthew or Brady. These results are 100% accurate, so please don’t yell at me if you don’t get the results you wanted*. You can’t anyway because I’m suspended, sucks to be you.
*Unless you’re the lawyer for someone with the last name Tkachuk, in that case, these are not accurate whatsoever, please I cannot afford to be sued.
Next week’s newsletter will have a breakdown of the results. Don’t worry, I will keep it anonymous, so if you got Brady, that’s extremely embarrassing and you should keep it to yourself and I would not want to subject anyone else to that, so we’ll keep it between us.
Have fun!
We Will Never Know What Happened With Matthew Tkachuk
is Elliotte Friedman an undercover cop? For a lot of unrelated reasons, I say yes
By Floob (@itlooksreal)
Well, this was bound to happen. It’s time for me to write about my most favourite thing in the entire world: The Narratives!
/streamers that were supposed to go off misfire, and a banner that’s supposed to say “This is Sarcasm, Please Understand That” sets on fire, making me rush to stomp it out before this entire building burns down
The Room: it’s not just a baffling 2003 cult classic movie that is famously beloved because it’s objectively terrible, it’s also where all the discourse in sports I find most objectionable comes from. Who’s good in there, who is a cancer, who has lost it, it’s all about The Room. The Goddamn Room.
When you toss a healthy serving of Matthew Tkachuk into what would normally just be every day minutia, baby, you’ve got a stew going, and now it seems the entire Calgary Flames season hinges on what goes on in The Room. What truly only amounts to pre-Zoom meeting banter at work, or fodder for your daily fritterings on CalgaryPuck or r/CalgaryFlames (whichever tribe you wear the paint for) becomes an investigation into the culture and makeup of an entire organization when a team is slumping and a star player looks off. Amateur gumshoes scour the internet inside out looking for the root of the problem in The Room, and what needs to be done to rectify the issue (usually trade one of your best players because no one understands nuance).
Thankfully, your weekly Calgary Flames focused newsletter, the one that the public is clamouring for, proclaiming it an indispensable tome, and “the thing that saved my marriage” would never stoop to such cheap rhetoric.
Anyway, let’s get into the cheap rhetoric. We gotta earn those clicks.
Here’s what we know or what has been speculated so far, in an effort to get it all out in the open, and then dismiss all of it outright. Through various Elliotte Friedman missives, we know that shortly after the Flames dropped back to back games against Toronto and The Jake Muzzin Thing happened, the team held a players only meeting, where it has been speculated that Matthew Tkachuk was aggrieved by the notion that his own teammates did not appear to have his back, whereas the team’s rebuttal was that the incident kinda happened while everyone was shuffling off the ice, that most of them were unaware what was happening, further that it wasn’t that big of a deal, and perhaps the rambunctious winger might consider being more frugal when picking his spots.
This is, of course, hearsay. Players only meetings are precisely that, so the legitimacy of any reports stemming from this will always be in question, even if it is Elliotte Friedman demonstrating how annoying it is to be shovelling a driveway while on air with the local sports radio station. We’ll never truly know if a) any of this is accurate, b) this was what the meeting was even about in the first place, and c) if any of it felt like a big deal. The media isn’t present when the players are holding court, and unless Tkachuk is leaking the details though his own PR channels (Very possible, but a discussion for another day if it’s warranted), the talking points will forever remain a mystery.
That being said, if any of this is above board, both sides have reasonable positions worth defending. Matthew Tkachuk depends on the men he shares a jersey with to be successful. This is his livelihood, and teams are put together to form bonds that are in service of those goals. If he feels like he’s on an island, it’s rational to be upset.
And though his teammates need to acknowledge that being a gifted shithead is a gigantic feature of his game, you can understand why they would want Tkachuk to start picking his spots. It’s not fun constantly breaking up scrums trying to hold back coked out 6’3” powder kegs that want nothing more than to decapitate him.
Whatever happened, Matthew’s performance on the ice dipped, and because we all know that correlation equals causation 100% of the time, the team and Tkachuk are now at odds, and only extreme measures can be taken to address it (I read a lot of Calgary Puck preparing for this piece, mostly because I guess I hate myself? That place is a wasteland).
This is where things get confusing. We all know who Matthew Tkachuk is, how he plays, how he truly only knows one speed. His teammates know that better than anyone. Why anyone of them would want to kneecap him is beyond me, as is why Tkachuk would ever take such advice to heart. He’s an integral piece of the Flames puzzle, and a lot of the team’s success hinges on what he gets done. He also knows his own value as an individual, and because this is all business, as a brand. He’s not about to sacrifice any standing as an entity in this league. He wouldn’t - and shouldn’t - be asked to neuter himself to appease someone who doesn’t contribute the way he does.
Which is why it doesn’t really matter who said what. To me, that all feels pretty inconsequential. Everyone knows we’re standing at the precipice of the Calgary Flames belonging to Matthew Tkachuk. We’ve speculated about this internally amongst all the Scorchies, just like we know you all have, and we’ve divided any potential interlopers into two buckets: Players that, through their role, their stature, or their tenure on the team would be promptly told to fuck off if they tried to tell a better hockey player how to conduct himself, or a member of an aging leadership core that would be shipped out of town before you’d ever think of coming down on Matthew Tkachuk for anything.
Further to that, these people are all professionals, and they have to do a job they get a handsome compensation for. Large groups of people are nearly impossible to keep in absolute conformity, yet they all still combine to build towards a common goal. This is nothing new. Apply it to your own workplace. I would be shocked if you haven’t had coworkers over the years that you don’t see eye to eye with, but because you’ve both got bills to pay, you work together anyway. I know I have. What’s up Tim, you fucking weirdo.
And I’m willing to believe the Flames aren’t even in it that far deep. While we’re all out here doombasting, Matthew Tkachuk is scoring his 100th career goal in front of a backdrop of smiling Calgary Flames players who were lining up to celebrate or give him his dap on social media or be David Rittich and get your long awaited hug. Nature is healing.
Losing streaks amplify everything, and winning restores a balance. All of a sudden Tkachuk is looking engaged in his play, and surprise surprise, he’s not too far off his normal production rate. It’s fitting that spring is right around the corner, because maybe this is a new beginning. That’s a narrative I can get behind.
ADVERTISEMENT
Thank you to all our great sponsors without which The ScorchStack would not be possible! We are unclear on why this was the ad copy sent to us, and whether Diet Coke or Johnny Gaudreau paid for this ad, but it is the ad of the week.
So You Want To Trade Sean Monahan
Yeah, and I want a pony
By Konnie (@konnie49)
Flames fans are in complete disarray right now. The team, despite a nice win against the Leafs on Monday, have not looked good at all in the recent week and change, and there are calls for serious change to the roster. Diehards are screaming for coaches to get fired, players shipped out, or ownership to acknowledge the position that management has put this team in. I guess looking bad against the Canucks really does something to a franchise.
One of the players that is most wanted out of town is Sean Monahan, assistant captain, Johnny Gaudreau beneficiary haver, and someone whose humour is so dry it rivals the Sahara Desert.
We can all agree that Monahan, as a whole, is not a top line centre. His deficiencies in his own zone, his over-dependence on his linemate to put him in a position where he can score, and his transitional play can leave a lot to be desired. Let’s also agree that Monahan’s biggest strength is his goal scoring and offensive generation in front of the net. In every season prior to last and his rookie season, he had scored at least 27 goals, with a career year in 2018-19 where he had 34. He can also dish it out, with over 30 assists each season not including last season and his rookie season.
When you look at trading the 26 year old centre - who is signed for 2 more seasons after this one - it is very easy to fall into two camps, one where you think that he can’t do anything without having Gaudreau on the line and is sinking his ability, or an offensive juggernaut that is integral to the team. Either he is worthless on the open market and the Flames should just take the best offer available, or teams should be willing to part with the sun and the moon in order to acquire such a divine specimen.
Let’s look at the negative camp first. As we saw in the games against the Oilers, there is an immediate hole in the Flames centre depth when Monahan is taken out. Thank goodness Elias Lindholm is taking steps into becoming a strong centre for the Flames or else the centre depth situation would look even more dire. Yes Backlund is able to move up into the 2nd line centre role, but when you look at the bottom 6, it is a straight tire fire. Sam Bennett has proven time and time again that he is just not an effective centre at the NHL level, and your other options to fill those two roles are Byron Froese (who is awful), Derek Ryan (who is injured for the foreseeable future), or Glen Gawdin (who is a rookie). On top of all of that, you lose roughly 30 goals of production on average with no one proven to take up that slack. Creating a massive hole in your lineup without having a reasonable replacement does this team no favours, regardless of what you think about the player himself.
On the other side of the spectrum, this is a message to all of you making trade requests. I don’t care how dumb you think the Buffalo Sabres are, they are not trading Jack fucking Eichel for your package of Monahan, Connor Zary and a 1st. Yes, Monahan has name recognition, and yes he is still in his prime, but do keep in mind that this is JACK EICHEL we are talking about. A superstar centre, which is something no person outside of Calgary could ever mistake Monahan for being. I understand you want him, but also understand that there are other teams in the NHL who could build a package much stronger than anything the Flames could ever muster, especially with Monahan as the centrepiece.
Monahan has short comings, and teams around the league are going to know that, especially if they have been scouting him this entire time. The level of return that we should expect is a player who is able to succeed in certain key aspects in their game while also having glaring flaws in others. The Flames can still certainly win a trade such as this, if they are able to take advantage of a team undervaluing their players’ contributions, but do not expect a world beater.
When it comes down to it, do I think Monahan will be traded this season or the offseason? No, not really. There will always be a market for a player who scores as much as Monahan does, but I don’t see a player coming back in a deal that has a quick payoff and an immediate impact like Monahan currently brings. In order to stay competitive, they need a centre coming back in a deal who can be effective in a top 6 role and be able to generate offense, and I just don’t see any team willing to give that up right now. If the Flames are trading him, its going to be for pieces that they will use to retool on the fly.
Flames fans, you are stuck with him, at least of the time being. At least enjoy that he can score 30 goals with a slight flick of the wrist.
Thing Baba Said This Week
Welcome to a new segment called “Thing Baba Said This Week” where every week we will post something Baba said that past week. Extremely self-explanatory.
By Baba Shlah (@babashlah)
Nabil [brother] likes Sam Bennett, he just says that he’s unlucky. I’m like, “ten years unlucky!?”
The Scorchstack AHL preview
I guess we need one of these
By Christian (@decayinwtheboys)
The AHL is back! The Stockton Heat, farm affiliate of the Calgary Flames, are playing out of the Saddledome due to that whole pandemic thing. Kinda inconvenient for them, but pretty convenient for the Flames.
I suppose we’ll start from square one for this preview, mostly because it’s the only square we’ll need to understand the 2021 AHL season. Here’s what the AHL is in theory:
A staging ground for a team’s young prospects to build chemistry and develop skills together
An intermediary league for players from junior to acclimatize to the challenges of pro hockey without destroying their confidence or sending them far overseas to superior leagues where you can’t access them
Wacky promo nights
Here’s what the AHL is in practice:
A dumping ground for depth guys, pro veterans, and prospects who aren’t exciting enough to immediately place on the roster, or just prospects that teams don’t want to use for various irrational reasons.
Make-work for prospects whose career history indicates that they will probably be good NHLers but won’t get called up for a long time because every team’s fourth line is filled with players found through a temp agency that cost the same money but get to stick around because of NHL experience.
Wacky promo nights
As someone who has spent the better part of the past five years paying attention to the AHL, I’m here to tell you that it is not worth your time. The players you should pay attention to are usually the players you already know to pay attention to, and just in case you don’t know, your NHL team (or the people covering it) will tell you which prospects they are paying attention to. You can go and read AHL insiders tell you about how underrated and ready-to-break-through certain players are, but all it takes is one cursory glance through AHL history to learn how often those players actually break through.
The AHL isn’t totally pointless or meaningless, but the amount of attention invested versus the amount of attention actually required is severely out of whack. You should pay attention to - at max - five prospects on your AHL team. That’s it. Only five of those guys have a realistic shot at being an NHL full-timer within a realistic window and everyone else is either stuck there forever or will be moving to Europe for next season.
For my money, the five guys you should pay attention to this year are Matthew Phillips, Dmitry Zavgorodniy, Adam Ruzicka, Matthias Emilio Pettersen, and one other guy of your choosing (or just Glenn Gawdin if he is sent back down). I’ll give you a bonus sixth in Connor Zary, but he’s only around on an exception until the WHL starts up. Everyone else is either old enough that they’re probably already out of runway to become an NHLer or just simply not good enough.
Those five players aside, everything else is just sideshow. You can consume it if you want to sound smart on some of the internet’s most pointless discussions, but it is very much not important. You don’t need to know AHL lines, you don’t need to break down footage, you don’t need to do anything. There are five guys who might make the league, and the rest probably aren’t. Most of this is unnecessary information that you will learn nothing from.
And that is the standard approach you should take to the AHL in a normal season. Have you heard the news? This season is not normal.
So far, the Stockton Heat have been smoked 7-1 and 5-1 in their first two games. They are a structureless mess that can’t score and can’t defend. They don’t know what they’re doing on the ice and after tonight’s game, they will have already completed 10% of their season. There’s no time to figure it out. If their very bad start continues for even four or five more games, they’re already out of the playoffs.
The reasons for this are obvious: this is all being done on the fly. The Heat suck because most of these guys have not played a serious game of hockey in nearly a year. They only learned yesterday what their schedule will be while their opponents had started their seasons a week ago. There’s going to be constant shuffling in and out as the Flames play their aggressive taxi squad/cap savings games. The roster is extremely fluid, the schedule is rushed, and they’re only just starting to learn how to play as a team, nevermind how to play at the NHL level.
They also only have 30 games to achieve that goal, which is not enough time to get to that NHL level or draw any meaningful conclusions. Statistically speaking, 30 games is just enough to be considered a decent sample size in a regular year, but not really enough to be a significant one. Even though the ratios change, 30 games is still just 30 games; they barely have the time to prove themselves. Every player on this team is at risk of having their future judged due to one bad streak or one good streak that they can’t regress to the mean from. If you want to write off these first few games due to the circumstances, that’s fine, but it only renders the remaining games more and more meaningless.
So the Heat aren’t making the playoffs, they won’t play enough hockey to really learn anything, and, whenever the season ends, the important prospects will not be that much closer to the NHL than they were the year prior. There’s really no point to this.
I’m not here to offer solutions (okay I am: the Flames should’ve loaned as many prospects as they could to the better pro leagues who are playing more often against better competition and filled the AHL with taxi-squad level guys), I’m just letting you know that there’s not a reason to pay attention this year. You can go about your day not worrying about the AHL.
This has been your AHL preview.
Is Dillon Dube - Who Has Not Been That Good At Hockey Since Getting That Haircut - A Direct Descendant of Samson From The Biblical Book Of Judges Who Famously Also Lost His Power After Getting A Haircut?
By Nathan (@Hanoten)
Maybe?
Up Next Week
The NHL is testing you: how much Ottawa Senators hockey can a non-Sens fan handle?
Scorchstack will have more hard-hitting answers to non-important questions. See the first article if you want to know what I’m talking about, don’t know how you missed that.
Sam Bennett trade watch update: we will have our intern call NHL GMs and do a Brad Treliving impression to see if he can grease the wheels a bit.
Respect levels for PHWA members are rapidly declining- is this the crisis of our era? Francis Ericsson investigates.
Maybe we’ll be happy. Who knows.