Scorchstack Issue #40- As That Was The Case In The Amish Lifestyle
40 seasons of Scorchstack, what an honour
It’s actually Scorchstack’s 4-0th issue, to commemorate the Oilers’ 2021 playoff run.
What’s inside?
People want the Flames to make trades, and Scorchstack is a publication of the people.
On that thread, the Leafs think the Flames are suckers who will fix their problems. Not a chance, pal.
Scorchstack: we’re a family, we’ve always been a family, and we’re not claiming we’re a family because the Family Feud Canada rules require us to be a family.
Andrew Mangiapane checks in to regale us in his travels over in Europe
Alex Ovechkin Update
Since last issue
Scorchstack #39- definitely not Scorchstack #38
No Big Monday Thing. You didn’t love the Big Monday Thing and it will never return again.
We say goodbye to Emilio Estevez. Thanks for the content and all the memories.
The NHL still hasn’t scheduled game five of the Flames-Canucks series. Does anyone have Gary Bettman’s number? I think there’s been a mistake.
The People Are Demanding Trades
Let’s talk trades, baby.
by Christian (@decayinwtheboys)
The first round of the playoffs is done, and with it comes a fresh batch of very disappointed and emotional (Leafs) fans who are convinced now more than ever that all it takes is One Simple Trick to get their team from early washout to cup contender.
Add those fans to the already bored fifteen fanbases wondering how their franchise too can turn things around in one transaction, the long wait until the next relevant date on the league calendar, and general COVID-related nuttiness, and we’ve got ourselves a potentially exciting offseason ahead of us. Or at least we’re imagining one.
The Flames, as we already know, need to supplant their already existing core with another piece. Other teams are looking to get rid of their pieces. Names are floated, rumours are flying around, people want to do some big trades.
I scoured Twitter and Capfriendly’s Armchair GM tool to see what names most fans, both Flames and others, are throwing around.
Mitch Marner
Everyone (Leafs fans) wants to give us Mitch Marner!
They just won’t stop giving us Mitch Marner!
Fan frustration with Marner is at an all-time high, thanks to his latest playoff no-show. Some of that is right (he was trash), some of that is wrong (the Leafs failure was a total team effort, and I’d argue that the Rocket Richard winner only scoring a single goal was probably the bigger disappointment) but if the Leafs fans want him out of there, you have to at least take a kick at the can. 24-year-old point per game right wings don’t become available every year.
Just a few problems with that.
People ragetweeting their armchair GM moves after a devastating loss is, at best, 5% representative of what management actually thinks, so I don’t think Marner is available.
The perceived issue with Marner on the Leafs is the value of his $10.9M AAV cap hit versus the value of his actual production is so out of whack that his contract is actually hurting the Leafs’ chances at being an actual contender via misallocated resources. If that’s true for the Leafs, who are an actual contender up until the playoffs, what other contending franchise is interested in taking that problem from Toronto, especially when the cap is only supposed to go back up after his contract is finished? Who wouldn’t be handcuffed by an underperformer making eight figures? Don’t bring up retained salary, because I can’t imagine a world where the Leafs hate Marner enough to pay him to play for someone else.
If the Leafs fans are right about how Marner’s success is mostly the product of playing with the other three members of the core four, how many other teams - much less the Calgary Flames - have their own version of that to repeat Marner’s success?
So yeah, don’t trade for Marner. The cliche is that one man’s trash is another’s treasure, but in reality it’s mostly just trash.
I don’t think he’s as bad as Leafs fans claim he is, and if he’s actually available you do have to inquire, but the amount of risk involved in taking on that cap hit with all those perceived issues (I didn’t even bring up his dad) is not worth it. If they take Monahan and Lucic straight up, I guess do it.
William Nylander
Okay no one is saying this except for the Scorchstack and other Flames fans, and Toronto would be nuts to trade the only player who deserved his salary in the playoffs. However, I want it badly and why I’m bringing it up. Bring Willy home, that’s the analysis here.
Jack Eichel
Ever since Eichel expressed the slightest bit of doubt in Buffalo’s process, everyone has been firing up the trade machines, trying to get him on their team for as cheap as possible.
And that’s probably the Flames’ biggest issue in making the hypothetical Eichel deal: how much are you going to give up to make this work? How much do you need to give up? Is the sum of what you’re paying worth what you’re acquiring?
Eichel is what the Flames have been needing for years: a bonafide elite player at a key position that ties together one forward line perfectly while pushing high-quality talent down the lineup to give the team a contending all-around attack.
But you’re also going to have to chip away at that high-quality supporting cast if you want a chance at Eichel. Is giving away one of Gaudreau or Tkachuk really worth Eichel when those are two wingers who could really thrive with a player like Eichel, much less all together? Is the grab bag of Lindholm, Dube, Mangiapane, Backlund, Andersson, any Flames player worth a shit at the NHL level, going to get this deal done without completely hampering your depth? Buffalo’s probably not dumb enough to take Monahan (haha…. unless….), so you are going to have to give away a few players who make positive contributions to this team over 82 games.
What Eichel’s time in Buffalo proved is that he can thrive without an NHL-calibre supporting cast. The Flames do have the players who can help him, but they’re also going to have to be included in that deal. The question about Eichel isn’t whether you want him on your team (you do), the question is how much are you willing to part with to do that, and how much can you part with before you’re actually taking value away from your club.
Sean Monahan
I guess I’ve brought him up twice, might as well talk about him.
We all know what Monahan is: a former regular 20 goal scorer who can’t really score 20 goals anymore and never had a defensive game to write home about. He’s the 3C on this team behind the Swedes, but is paid more than them. Not a great situation, obviously the guy you move on from.
Does the rest of the league know that? Definitely. But are there some teams willing to write off his flaws due to his injury history and Calgary’s general inconsistency? Well, they managed to trade Sam Bennett at a very low point for a great package, so you’d hope that’s the case.
That’s really what we’re banking on: that someone is dumb enough to overlook all the obvious red flags and get enamoured with the usual dumb things hockey men get enamoured about. If you’ve followed this sport, you’ll know that there’s maybe like six GMs who know that you stay away from flawed, one-dimensional players who have a history of being flawed, one-dimesional players, and 25 GMs who will galaxy brain their way into making him a reclamation project who could be a key piece on a contending team.
Enter Pierre Dorion, according to overly optimistic Flames fans who are reading too much into the Ottawa Sun reporting the piece of news we already knew. I could see it, as Dorion is regarded as a bit of a dope, Monahan did play his junior hockey there (very important!), and that they might get a little too high on where they are in their rebuild after they finished sixth instead of seventh in the division.
I don’t get why the Senators, or any team, would part with quality assets for Monahan but I’m also an extremely jaded Flames fan who doesn’t believe anything good will happen to this team. I’ll concede that I might be the pessimist here, but I’ll also set the high bar at a top 100 pick, no salary back, and a 21-year-old prospect and the low bar at a trade that saves the Flames $475,000 and brings back some penalty killer who is overpaid for that job.
Evgeny Kuznetsov
What if you could replace a declining Monahan with another player who appears to be declining, but is also older, more expensive, signed longer, and has spent the better part of the last two seasons pissing off the team he plays for. Would you make that trade?
Sam Reinhart
Reinhart’s not the most talked about trade target, kind of a second option if Eichel doesn’t work out, but is still a very good player and probably the most realistic get from the Flames perspective. He also wants to get out of Buffalo, and with pretty strong scoring totals and underlying numbers, it’s tempting to see what he could do on a better team.
What helps the Flames is that Reinhart is a pending RFA, setting a pretty easy market for a potential trade. His next contract will likely put him in the first, second, and third round pick range for offer sheet compensation. If you’re the Flames, you could easily just offer that package straight up and let Treliving’s RFA negotiation magic do its work, or you could sub out a pick or two for an NHL player and/or a prospect and go the hockey trade route.
Obviously, Reinhart is not the superstar others on this list are, but he’s an all-around solid player who can score and fills an immediate need on this team. Those players are easier to acquire than others, and probably the most tolerable from a fan’s perspective.
Matthew Tkachuk
I know MMA, pal.
Some People Really Want Calgary To Fix Toronto's Roster Through Some Batshit Trades
These people think it's healthier to do this than go outside and have a nice walk
by Nathan (@hanoten)
Scorchie Kristian has done a great job outlining the realities of any potential trades this offseason. But the beauty of Scorchstack is that we can hit you with some very good analysis while also highlighting just some complete, absolute buffoonery. So please enjoy these people who proposed some horrendous trades involving the Flames in the wake of the Leafs’ latest meltdown.
I don’t want to be bored with your Gaudreau for Marner trades or your Nylander for Tkachuk trades, show me Leafs’ fans at their most desperate and turning to CapFriendly’s trade machine instead of literally anything else that would improve their lives.
User Hockeypro proposes that Matthew Tkachuk, Jakob Pelletier, and Calgary’s 3rd round pick in 2022 are traded for Mitchell Marner, Mikhail Abramov, and Toronto’s 4th round pick in 2023
I generally don’t give a shit about prospects, much less other team’s prospects. There is simply too much going on for me to care about if a guy will make it unless that guy is Dustin Wolf. So I have no idea who Mikhail Abramov is. I googled him, and he is either Toronto’s 4th round pick from 2019 or an 87-year-old Russian philosopher with 38 works in 50 publications in two languages and 228 library holdings, who first published in 1958 but really started going off in the late 90s and was an incessant poster until 2010. I’m only really interested in this trade if it’s the latter.
Anyway, this is a terrible trade for reasons I don’t really need to get into so instead let’s pour one out for Mikhail the philosopher, whose brand online has been usurped by prospect Abramov that even when you search mikhail aleksandrovich abramov philosopher on Google it’s still the prospect who shows up in the photo.
I wonder what his Instagram is like!
User trademaster20 proposes that Buffalo receives Noah Hanifin, Derek Ryan, and Connor Mackey; Calgary receives Mitchell Marner (50% salary retained by Toronto), Buffalo’s 2nd round pick in 2022, and Buffalo’s 3rd round pick in 2023; Toronto receives Johnny Gaudreau
There’s a lot happening here, and I honestly have no idea why Buffalo is included here if Marner is coming in at 50%. If you take out the core Marner for Gaudreau piece, this has Calgary trading three players to Buffalo for two picks. In Calgary’s three players, one player is a UFA, one player finally figured out how to be good, and the third is Connor Mackey.
Actually, I take it back. I want to see more trade proposals like this that insist that Connor Mackey is a key piece that the Flames must trade and is a valuable thing for other teams to covet. Noooo don’t take our prized nearly-25-year-old prospect, that would hurt my feelings.
Looking at the trade as a whole, I think the only team that would say yes is Buffalo? This is clearly two separate trades, and with Marner’s salary being retained, Calgary doesn’t need to give away Noah Hanifin for two future picks. trademaster20 does not deserve this name, in which their goal is clearly how do other teams need to bend their will in order to accommodate themselves. Who do you think you are, Stan Bowman?
User The_6_Legend proposes that Calgary receives Morgan Rielly and Ilya Mikheyev, Columbus receives Mitchell Marner, and Toronto receives Max Domi, Patrik Laine, Matthew Tkachuk, Toronto’s 1st round pick in 2021 (re-acquired), and Calgary’s 2nd round pick in 2022.
Hmmmmm.
Hard to tell here who The_6_Legend roots for.
But hey, at least it would be cap compliant!
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Scorchstack Family History
Learn all about our half Swedish/half Pennsylvanian Dutch history
by Ramz (@ramzreboot)
As you may have seen, Scorchstack would like to apply to be on the show Family Feud Canada.
In order to be on Family Feud Canada, we all have to be related and I had to suspend my very real mayoral campaign.
Well, it’s a good thing we are all related! Haha, not sure what Floob is saying in that Twitter DM there about “pretending”.
We figured it’s enough of just “talk”. It’s time for some action. So, the Scorchies are going to apply to be on Family Feud Canada. Because of this, we thought it was best to let you all in on our family history, and we will be referencing this piece when applying to be on Family Feud Canada, so let’s all be on our best behaviour!
Our last name is Scorchstack (as you already know from our substack), our father is Pennsylvanian Dutch, and our mother is Swedish. These are all of our real names, since many of you know us by our nicknames:
Ramona Scorchstack
Flööb Scorchstack
Kristian Scorchstack
Mikael Scorchstack
Nathan Scorchstack
Konstantin Scorchstack
Now, Konstantin (aka Konnie) isn’t a sibling, he’s actually our cousin on our dad’s side. His mother is Russian. Keep reading and you’ll learn.
Let’s learn about our father, Mr. Scorchstack. He’s a Pennsylvanian Dutchman who grew up in Pennsylvania, more specifically Lancaster County. Although he grew up as Mennonite, he calls himself an “Amish Survivor”. Our father and his twin brother had enough of their strict lifestyle and they both ran away at the age of 17. Due to this, they have been banished and have never returned to Lancaster County. They got odd jobs here and there and decided they needed to learn about the world since they had grown up very sheltered, and decided on a backpacking trip all over Europe.
They went all around Europe. London, Paris, Austria. They took a trip to the Nordic countries and spent a few days in Sweden. They went to Stockholm but visited a smaller city called Västerås. There, our father Mr. Scorchstack met the love of his life, Frida Scorchstack. Frida had a Russian friend Katerina, with who our father’s brother fell in love.
Our father and his brother wanted to come back to North America, but they did not want to go back to Lancaster County. They had convinced their new loves, who they ended up both marrying, to come back to North America. Frida and Katerina agreed, but only if they could go somewhere cold to be as similar to Sweden as possible, and thus chose Canada. We’re not exactly sure how they chose Alberta, more specifically Calgary, but this is where they landed.
And my brothers, my cousin, and I were all born! The oldest is Flööb at 38 years old, then we have Mikael at 32, next is Nathan at 29, then we have me at 26, next is Kristian at 25, and the youngest of the Scorchstack bunch is Konnie, also 25.
Growing up, we called ourselves the Scorchies, which is a nickname we still all go by. Some of us look much different than the others, especially in height, and we think we got more of our dad’s genes than our Swedish genes, but we don’t know much about our father’s side, so it’s hard to know. They have no pictures from their childhood, as that was the case in the Amish lifestyle, so we really have no genetic reference.
The fact that our father’s last name is Scorchstack is an incredible coincidence. You see, the Flames had that horrifying AHL mascot named “Scorch” who we all know and love. And we all grew up loving hockey since we grew up in Calgary. Since we’re all so close, we know we wanted to start a substack together to talk about hockey together, and the fact that there’s the word “Scorch” and the word “stack” in those two things, and that’s our last name? We were meant to do this.
We hope you all learned a little more about us! Wish us luck in our application to be on Family Feud Canada!
Andrew Mangiapane’s Latvian Travel Diary
This article is about the Republic of Latvia. For other uses, see Latvia (disambiguation)
by Andrew Mangiapane
[Editor’s note: We here at the mighty Scorchstack are very fortunate to have obtained an exclusive travel diary from Flames forward Andrew Mangiapane, who is documenting his experiences in Riga, Latvia, representing Team Canada at the IIHF Men’s World Hockey Championships. While the Bread Boy is an avowed and professed fan and subscriber of the Scorchstack (don’t look into that, just know that it’s true), his entries mostly appear after games when his energy levels are depleted and he’s in recovery mode, which is why it reads more like Flööb googled a bunch of facts about both Latvia and the diminutive Flames winger. It just reads like that. We assure you everything is above board, we don’t even know why we mentioned the Flööb thing. In fact, you know what? We didn’t. You’re just crazy. Please enjoy this excerpt from Andrew Mangiapane]
“Sveiciens” from Latvia! That means greetings. I’ve gotten really good at learning Latvian, as I studied it for a long time ahead of my travels.
It’s me, Andrew, and I know you’re getting tired of these check-ins from abroad, but honestly I can’t stop talking about the experience. I’ve never been to Europe before, and this has been a really eye-opening undertaking for me. Who would have thought, me, a kid from Bolton, Ontario, born April 4th, 1996 would be getting a firsthand glimpse at what life is like here in the old country!
Stepping out of the Riga International Airport and into the heart of Northern Europe was like venturing into an entirely new world. Located about 15 kilometres away from the Gulf of Riga, that fresh sea air hit me like some fresh baked bread, which is also my nickname, so both of those things hit me immediately. Of course, the weather was the other thing that became immediately apparent to me. The weather in May out here can still be a bit chilly, but the temperature rises over the course of the month, and it can even exceed 20 °C in the warmest days. I don’t know why I remember that little tidbit so readily, must have been something a tour guide told me or something.
I checked into one of the many top notch hotels in downtown Riga, probably, and settled in for 10 days or two weeks or something of culture, exploration, and I guess if I had to, a little hockey as well!
I wanted to find a truly Latvian way to experience the city, so I did what any great adventurer would do, which is check trip advisor on my phone. Under “ways to tour Riga” I found a recommendation for the Olympic Bobsleigh. My notion of what a bobsleigh is made this an interesting option, as I figured these just go on an ice track in an enclosed area, but it said “ways to explore Riga”, so I didn’t ask any questions and went on my way. I’ll tell you what, II took that bobsleigh all over town.
The city of Riga, by my estimation, has a population of 627,847 (although I would guess 1.07 million metro!), so the city is much bigger than a place like Barrie, where I plied my trade playing major junior hockey with the Colts of the Ontario Hockey League. One of the local Latvians (of which 47.1% of the city is populated by!) told me that the capital has an area of 303.43 square kilometres, so my bobsleigh would sure get its blades all heated up taking me around every nook and cranny Riga has to offer, so it made sense to pick somewhere central to tool around in for the day and work my way out from there. Fortunately for me, that meant going to Vecrīga, or “Old Riga”, the historical center of the capital, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I’m very passionate about those, so I was over the moon given the opportunity to see one in person!
Not many people know this, but I’m Italian, so obviously one thing that I really love is food! My nonna used to always tell me about buying staple foods from markets in Old Europe, and said if I ever had a chance to experience it, that you need to try it. And what nonna says, well, you just do it. Some of the staple foods in Latvia are grey peas and ham, as well as rupjmaize, a dark rye bread. I bought all those ingredients and a Gatorade and had myself a nice little authentic Latvian lunch! I have to say, it could have used some prosciutto, but hey, I’m learning culture over here!
One attraction that was recommended to me was the House of the Blackheads, a building created for the Brotherhoods of Blackheads, a guild of merchants and shipowners, constructed way back in the 14th century. But I have to tell you the idea of going there gives me pause, because it reminds me of a problem I had with blackheads back in 2015, the same year I was selected 166th overall in the 6th round of the NHL Entry Draft by the Calgary Flames, so I think I might skip that one. There are all kinds of other historic churches and theatres I can spend my time touring instead, and believe me, I’ll be doing that. I see you over there Riga Radio and TV Tower, the tallest structure in all of the Baltic States! But then again, I guess so does everyone else around here (because it’s very tall).
I’m excited to document all my other excursions to you loyal Scorchies, but I need to cut off this entry here, as I have to load up all my gear into my bobsleigh and head over to Arena Riga. We’re playing the Italian team in a little bit, and I’m very conflicted about it. I haven’t decided which sideI’m going to suit up for yet, but I’ll let you know next time I hook up my good friends here at the Scorchstack with my next travel diary!
Tiksimies nākamreiz!
Alex Ovechkin Update
It’s the Alex Ovechkin update
by floob (@itlooksreal)
In last week’s issue, we ran a poll in which Scorchies vote on what soul-crushing thing I’ll have to do that will help send the right energy into the universe that convinces Washington Capitals captain and goal-scoring phenom Alexander Ovechkin to sign with the Calgary Flames in free agency.
Well, the results are in:
I have to say, I had no real sense of what was going to end up winning this whole thing, and in saying that, I’m still very surprised the Glee option ended up being the option that came out on top.
So I guess I’m watching this a whole bunch of times. Ramz has informed me this particular episode was the one episode that made the cast think “what the fuck are we still doing here?” and just as a reminder that’s the cast of the show Glee.
Suffice to say this is about to get dark, but I’m happy to do it. If you happen to be Alex Ovechkin and you’re reading this (we’re the Scorchstack, I cannot rule it out), please acknowledge what we’re doing for you around here. You don’t have to say anything outwardly, we don’t need that kind of recognition, but if you put that pen to paper on a contract with the Flames, it’ll be a nice little nod to all of us here.
Also if you do want to mention us by name, that would be cool too.
Check this space in the future to watch me die a million times watching one episode of Glee over and over again.
Up Next Week
Family Feud Canada, please answer my emails
It’s wild that the Flames are both in game five of their first round series against the Canucks (TBA) and in the draft lottery with the chance to win a first overall pick. Crazy how the NHL works sometimes.
Floob endures the horrible thing he has to do to get Alex Ovechkin in Calgary. Spoiler alert: it will be horrible.
We’re petitioning the league to put the Leafs back in the playoffs. We don’t have anything left to watch.
Which Flames are Pfizer fellas? Which are Moderna men?
Coming soon to Burn The Tape: F*ck Ryan Kesler and F*ck his stupid house