Scorchstack Issue #47 - At least give us something we can pretend is nice
If you're a Flames fan, you probably don't know what a good night's sleep is so there is no risk for us publishing this at midnight
Scorchstack after dark, and you know what that means. That's right, we're allowed to say fuck.
What’s inside?
The Flames are doing pretty average so far this offseason and you know what? Sure.
On the other hand, what if Jack Eichel changed everything?
Also, it's great to see some players we love get paid stupid money by stupid teams and we have some suggestions to add to that list.
Since last issue
Scorchstack #46: All of us drafted our own Seattle team based on concepts and all of them were better than the actual Kraken
Speaking of drafts, the Flames drafted a nice Italian boy and also some other boys.
And there's a lot of other stuff too.
Flames have themselves a perfectly okay day to start free agency
by Nathan (@hanoten)
After the NHL draft last weekend, fellow Scorchie Tibs had a great summary of how the Flames did, and it rings true for their entire offseason thus far.
It’s true. So far, the Flames have been decidedly C+ so far this offseason and honestly, it’s just kind of nice. Sure, they haven’t traded for Jack Eichel, but they also didn’t trade for Duncan Keith or Cody Ceci or sign Tucker Poolman, Zach Hyman, Luke Schenn to deals, much less long and bad ones.
Instead, they’ve allowed everyone who roots for the Flames to wake up tomorrow feeling generally the same as they did today, which is a far cry from offseasons in the past. At this point, they’re looking pretty good for a first-round exit, which means playoffs, baby!
But in all seriousness, this is a very middling team who is still rather middling, and today was not the day to aggressively fix that (Eichel trade notwithstanding). They weren’t going to buy their way into being a great team, not with their limited cap space and history of free agent splurges. Nor did they make so many truly awful decisions today which will handcuff the franchise for years, as was the theme for today. Perhaps that would have given the team a stockpile of high draft picks, but if we’re being honest we just would have found Sam Bennett 2.0 with more hair, probably.
There were no rollercoasters, just nice waves and dips. Signing Blake Coleman for under $5M per year? Wow, that’s great, even if it’s a bit long. Signing Trevor Lewis at all? Well darn but hey it’s only one year. Trading a 3rd in 2022 for Nikita Zadorov when the better Alex Edler was available for the same cap hit? Hmm I don’t really care for that but it’s whatever for next year. Trading another 3rd in 2022 for a young, cheap goalie with promise? Well hello, Dan Vladar, I hope you play more games than Louis Domingue but if not that’s cool too.
I might be underselling the Coleman contract here but he’s not enough to change the fortunes of this team so I know better than to get excited. It’s just really refreshing that a declining Jaden Schwartz or overpay for Phillip Danault or sign any of the #GRIT that Boston obsessed over today.
So many teams got actively worse in the past two weeks, and Calgary is part of that group from having lost Giordano for nothing in the expansion draft. But they didn’t actively make themselves much worse after that, and in the current landscape of the Pacific, that should be good enough to make the playoffs, which you have to imagine is the goal right now for the franchise and not truly being a contender.
Unless they trade for Jack Eichel. Then hell yeah let’s goooooooo. (They won’t, but can you imagine if they did?)
A Jack Eichel trade- maybe it actually happens?
Could the Flames do a good thing? Is this team, the Calgary Flames, making me feel hope?
by tibs (@decayinwtheboys)
The NHL calendar flipped over to the 2021-22 season and Jack Eichel is still a Buffalo Sabre. And boy, is he (reportedly) pissed off about it.
After getting multiple Eichel Trade warnings, nothing has come to pass and the biggest news story of the offseason has yet to be broken. With every passing day, it’s another day Eichel can’t get his neck surgery and another day towards him maybe playing another game for the Buffalo Sabres. We cannot blame him for his existential dread or his sour mood.
Adding to that is the fact that everyone’s interest level in Jack Eichel is about the same as Eichel’s interest level in the Buffalo Sabres. It’s nuts to think that he has been publicly available since January and actively shopped around since May and no one is taking him on. What’s up with that? Is the price simply too dang high?
For the answer, let’s look at this report about what Buffalo wanted from the Golden Knights:
That is…. insanely reasonable? Like, insanely reasonable? Almost certainly something that would be on hfboards? A decent 30 year old NHLer making $5M, a pretty promising junior forward, a budding young defenceman, and a first? For Jack Eichel?
You’d think that Vegas, a team that has been playing with house money (gambling phrase- what they do in Las Vegas) since day one and can seemingly make any transaction they want to, would jump at that. When they traded their Vezina winning goaltender for literally nothing, everyone thought that they were jumping at that. Then they went and spent all their money on Evgenii Dadonov, Alec Martinez, and Laurent Brossoit. Alright.
You’d also think the Kings, who have loaded up their prospect pool with more talent than a Pacific rival really wants to think about, would jump at that. What’s a few prospects when you have ten more waiting in the wings? They went for Phillip Danault, Andreas Athanasiou, and Alex Edler when they still aren’t that much closer to competing. Again, alright.
The Wild, Rangers, Bruins, and pretty much everyone who could use Eichel has decided to say “nah” to Eichel. There’s an elite, young 1C who is locked up until 2026 available and no one wants him. It’s a weird world out there.
(An alternate, contrarian take here would be: it’s a bit concerning that everyone has dropped out of the Eichel race, perhaps indicating that there’s something the public might not be aware of. Could be something there! My counter is that the NHL is a stupid league filled with stupid people who have repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot identify and appreciate talent.)
And it’s given me a semblance of hope for the Flames, who are also desperate Eichel wanters and theoretically can still make a trade work even after they give Nikita Zadorov the bad contract they’re destined to give him. I will fully admit that I didn’t think an Flames/Eichel trade was possible. Just last month, the rumour was that it would be Matthew Tkachuk involved in a deal, and if not him, every other young Flames player worth a shit. The Sabres fans were certain they could get Tkachuk, Rasmus Andersson, and two firsts. Oh you fools (but they aren’t as disgraceful as the Flames fans who talked themselves into thinking Tkachuk being off this team would actually be good. You know who you are, and shame on you.)
Now that Buffalo has reportedly accepted their own mortality and are cutting the price on Eichel to “at least give us something we can pretend is nice,” it’s hard to count the Flames out. Based on that Vegas package, the Flames could offer up something like Sean Monahan, Connor Zary, Juuso Valimaki, and a first. If Monahan understandably won’t waive his no-move clause to go to Buffalo, I think you could involve a third team that will pay assets directly to Buffalo for Monahan while letting Calgary keep one of the four. Everyone wins, except for Buffalo, but they were never really going to.
Will it happen? I don’t know, good things famously never happen to the Calgary Flames. However, I’m actually hopeful for once and I look forward to buying a $300 #15 jersey I don’t actually need. Please just let me know when.
Flames Players I’d Like To See Get Paid A Lot Of Money By Other Teams
Is this what weaponizing cap space means? I don’t really get it
by floob (@itlooksreal)
You probably saw the news earlier this week that Florida Panthers RFA and former Calgary Flame Sam Bennett just signed a contract extension that will keep him in Sunrise for four more seasons. The Panthers decided they liked the idea of paying Bennett $4.4 million dollars a year over that time.
If you’re reading the Scorchstack, a) congratulations, this is the best decision you will make all week, and b) you’re most likely a Flames fan, and you know that this new contract for Bennett is INSANE. We’ve sat idly by as the former Kingston Frontenac consistently and without mercy demonstrated that he was never going to live up to the billing he received as the 4th overall pick in the 2014 draft. Hell, he couldn’t even handle playing the game at his natural center position. He’d been given chance after chance to break out, and he would provide you with results that would only leave you agonizing over trying to be okay with a 1 year, $2 million extension he just seemed to repeatedly walk away with. A long term deal with almost twice the price tag tied to him is jarring to see. He would never have been offered that in Calgary, nor should he ever have been.
But here’s the thing: I really like Sam Bennett. He seems like an affable enough guy, and I find it endearing that he’s spent his entire career being referred to as “18 year old Sam Bennett”, while simultaneously looking like he was crawling further and further into his forties with every passing week. I loved that he had the confidence and the appropriate facial structure to pull off the Lanny McDonald tribute mustache, a world this humble author will never know. He always seemed really well liked by his teammates, especially among the young stars in the ranks, and he was always enthusiastic once his skates hit the ice. He might not have been very good, but he was always fun to watch.
So I was happy to see him get that contract with Florida. Happy for him. I like when the guys I like get theirs. It’s just so much more appealing when the team taking on that cap hit is not the Calgary Flames. It’s the best of both worlds. We went through this exact scenario a few seasons ago when our beloved Micheal Ferland decided he liked Vancouver’s 4 year, $14 million offer. It was best for Calgary to not have to fork over that kind of dough for the baby faced winger, but it sure was great that someone out there wanted to. (For obvious reasons, the fact that it was Vancouver made it the MOST perfect) For really tragic reasons, it hasn’t worked out for Micheal since then, but I’m happy that he and his family will always know financial stability. He deserves it.
The Canucks also just pulled this stunt again with Travis Hamonic, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. Hamonic is pretty much washed at this point, but not enough so that Jim Benning - my hero - wouldn’t offer him $6 million over the next two seasons. I don’t want to see Hamonic patrol the Flames blueline ever again, but he is impossible not to like. I’m glad you got yours one more time, Travis, I sincerely hope you enjoy it.
With all this out of the way, I’ve been thinking about some players I love who have worn the Flaming C, who have torn on my heartstrings over the years, that I would love for other teams to offer boatloads of money to before Brad Treliving gets the chance.
Honourable mentions: Michael Frolik, Brain Elliott, Derek Ryan, Austin Czarnik, countless guys who aren’t even in the NHL anymore. Also I want Jaromir Jagr back in Calgary. You just never know.
1. Sven Baertschi
With all the commotion surrounding Day 1 of a truly asinine free agency period, you may have missed that former Flames wunderkin Sven Baertschi signed a pretty modest 1 year, two way deal with the Vegas Golden Knights. This means there’s a better than average chance that Sven is close to holding a Stanley Cup over his head sooner rather than later. We all know what having your name on that chalice does for a player’s wallet, and I would love to see Sven cash in one way or another after his Vegas tryout comes to an end. You may not remember, but there was a time when Baertschi was THE future for the Flames. He was all we had coming. An injury depleted lineup gave us a tantalizing glimpse of what we were in store for when he was brought in as an emergency callup in 2012, giving us the most beautiful five game sample you will ever see. He could have been something incredible in Calgary, but we had [redacted] behind the bench for the Flames, ensuring that any nice thing we ever got could be easily tainted. Fuck him. He sewered Sven. But in 2012, we loved him immediately. I still do. I want nothing but the best for Sven Baertschi. Vancouver was unkind to him, and he deserves to lord that over them as much as he does Calgary. I can’t wait for him to do it.
2. David Rittich
This one, admittedly, is probably not coming. Big Save Dave just signed in Nashville to spell off incumbent starter Juuse Saros after Pekka Rinne, who was the referee for the deciding game of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union, retired this offseason. Rittich is only making $1.25 million this year, and is probably going to be relegated to backup duty for the rest of his NHL career, so a big ticket contract is not especially likely to fall into his lap.
But what if it was? What if Saros falters, or gets plagued with injury? What if Rittich gets traded midseason and goes on a Mikka Kiprusoffesque run on his new team? What if he made it impossible not to go ham on a new contract for him next season? Who would be mad about this? He’s the most loveable guy in the NHL, what are you going to do, COMPLAIN THAT HE’S THERE? What kind of monster would ever do that? Dave would forgive you if you were that guy, but that’s because he is 101% pure of heart.
3. Oliver Kylington
This one is born out of spite. I would love to see Oliver Kylington play his way into a top flight contract opportunity just to shove it in Calgary’s throat.
It’s been pretty obvious for a long time that Kylington is never going to be given a real shot in Calgary. Certainly he’s not the best defenseman we’ve ever seen, but have you seen the litany of trash heaps that have been given the ice time ahead of him? Why do I even know who Alexander Yelesin is? I had to double check his name was Alexander immediately after I clicked away from the tab verifying it so I could write it down here.
I don’t know that Kylington will ever become a top 4 defenseman in this league, but at a certain point you have one pretty glaring reason to point at why we never got the chance to find out in Calgary. I know he hasn’t gone anywhere yet, but for his sake, I’d love to see him be given the chance to thrive in another rink. He deserves the opportunity to make something for himself, and he deserves to shit all over the Flames if he does it.
4. Mark Giordano
Exposing Mark Giordano in the expansion draft was the second most logical thing the Flames could have done, so it makes sense that they did it, and I can’t fault them for it. And Seattle had to choose him, they really didn’t have a choice. He’s the perfect player to bring in to a fledgling organization trying to scrape together some legitimacy. He’s talented, a born leader, rock solid on the blueline, has enough name recognition and a strong enough resume to sell some tickets to a new fanbase, and he’s just really, REALLY easy to like. He’s Mark Freaking Giordano. He was one of the best defenseman of a generation and we got to see him ply his trade in our own backyards.
Those are some pretty bona fide reasons for Seattle to make him their own, but it’s those same reasons why it’s really hard to watch him go. He’s definitely in the running out the clock phase of his career, but he’s a free agent the second the final buzzer sounds on this inaugural Seattle season, and it would be routinely fitting if Gio played so well that he earned himself one more big, fat, Italian sub of a contract. I want to see it happen, and I also really want to eat that contract.
5. Milan Lucic
It would be funny, and also really good. Please take him away from us.
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Up Next Week
The Scorchies take a fun trip to the Prime Meridian Line in Greenwich and learn a valuable lesson about a.m. vs. p.m. and never publish at midnight again until the next time we do.