Scorchstack Issue #63- Forever Tainting That Grease Stain Of A Building
if you don't like this issue, it's because you just came off a seven game eastern road trip and you're ravenous from lack of sleep
UBS Arena? How about the Ulet Bradrichardson Scorethefirstgoalinyour Arena. Is that something?
What’s inside?
Hey since everything is nice and good, why don’t we talk about Matthew Tkachuk’s upcoming contract?
Brad Richardson may have scored the first goal in UBS Arena history, but he’s no Morris Stefaniw: hockey legend.
The Flames are winning the cup folks, the stats don’t lie.
Since last issue
The IggyStack, different from Scorchstack as it was published on Thursday instead of Wednesday, made its debut. A once-in-a-lifetime event that you can still go back and read right now.
We would also like to point out that the Flames have been undefeated since the debut of the IggyStack, winning every single game in the past week. They averaged 4.75 goals for and one goal against per game. Such is the power of the IggyStack.
Big Monday Thing said the thing we’re all afraid to say: the Flames are good
Many are asking: should we be concerned about the Scorchstack to Big Shiny Goons pipeline? Listen to Floob’s episode to find out the answer. He talked about Gob. Subscribe to Big Shiny Goons. (Big Shiny Gob - floob)
No Need to Worry about Tkachuk's next contract
"OMG can you believe?" Yes, yes I can
by Konnie (@konnie49)
Back in the summer, most teams were able to look at the situation that was happening in Ottawa with the Brady Tkachuk negotiations with the Senators with humoured vitriol that they can’t sign their (arguably) best forward to a contract. On one side, the player was asking for the sun and the moon, and the team was looking to shortchange him at every possible opportunity. On and on the negotiation went only for the everyone to say, “Why is this taking so damn long. The Tkachuk camp/Senators are dumb." The only fans that didn’t have any fun watching this saga were Senators fans and Calgary Flames fans.
As with anything that is even mildy related to the Flames, there was moral panic starting to brew amongst this very fandom. “Oh just look how long these negotiations are on going with Brady and the Sens, imagine how bad the contract negotiation will be with Matthew! Wait, his deal is done this year! Oh god, what are we gonna do?!”
I’m here to tell you that your moral panic is not warranted. No, it is not worth worrying about a contract negotiation that won’t even properly start until July of this year. In fact, I will give you 3 reasons why.
Reason 1: His Qualifying Offer pretty much cements what he will be getting on his next deal
Unlike most RFAs coming out of a deal, Matthew has a extremely high Qualifying Offer of $9 million that he will have the option to either accept and have his contract last for one year before he can reach free agency or reject it and sign a deal with the team as an RFA.
From the top, it looks like Tkachuk has all of the leverage. To maintain the most leverage, it actually makes sense to accept a qualifying offer so that he can negotiate a long term deal as a UFA. That way, the asks on a longer term contract will be significantly higher and also allows him extend so control over the direction of the team, as more conditions have to be met in order for Tkachuk to sign a deal. Yes, this does add stress to the negotiation for a team that has does not deal with player leverage all too well, but if the Flames are actually willing to make this Tkachuk’s team, they will do what they can to meet the demands. At minimum he will be getting paid ~$9 million a season, so any other potential number thrown around can be easily discarded. Its either $9mil or he isn’t signing.
If it does come to the fact that the Flames are not able to get a trade done, a significant trade will be happening. They are not going to lose Tkachuk for nothing.
This is all moot if Tkachuk just decides to reject his qualifying offer and decide to stay around, then all worry goes straight out the window. He is going to stay and its only a matter of time that he signs a deal in the 5-8 year range with an AAV of around $8.75-9.5 million range. Yes, it will be that simple, and yes it will take a lot longer than you think to get to that number.
Reason 2: Tkachuk deals are signed in the Fall
For this part, we don’t even need to really look into Matthew’s father Keith Tkachuk, but he also had famously long drawn out contract negotiations. Just looking at how it went for Matthew the previous time with his deal coming out of ELC and how long it took to for the Sens to sign Brady. The Tkachuk brothers sign their deals took almost until the start of the season, with Matthew’s last deal well into the preseason and Brady had actually missed games before his deal was done. Thats how the Tkacuk brothers do their deals, if the deadline isn’t immediate, then there is not point in their minds to get a deal done.
So when you are sitting out their thinking that there is an impending doom everyday of the summer that the longer Matthew is unsigned, it means that it will be less likely that he will be in a Flames jersey for the season, just note that you are absolutely wasting your time worrying about something extremely stupid.
Reason 3: There are more interesting contracts coming up to debate
Frankly, we already know a baseline of what Tkahcuk will make and a vague estimate of how long the deal will be. Its not much of a debate because of the Qualifying Offer predetermining the AAV and the length of the term being skewed towards player wanting a shorter term to ensure another large payday and the team wanting as long as possible to get as many UFA years under contract as possible. Its pretty much set in stone, even if it takes until the start of next season to settle.
With how many deals are up at the end of this season for the Flames, this one takes a backseat. you have Johnny Gaudreau who is absolutely crushing it so far being a UFA at the end of the season and it isn’t a guarantee that he returns after this season. then you have the RFAs, starting with Mangiapane who is 2nd in goals in the entire league but does not have the track record from before this season of being elite. Couple that with Kylington who is having his own breakout season but has even less of a track record behind him that the team has to work its way through. That’s not even mentioning any players that they might bring in at the trade deadline that the team would want to look at re-signing, if they bring on anyone at all.
Many more moving parts and variables in each of those deals just don’t compare to a deal that will be pretty much determined the minute the qualifying news come out just after the NHL Draft.
Yes, the Matthew Tkachuk contract saga is gonna be long and drawn out and yes, I am already tired of all the commentary that surrounds it. The only important dates that you need to remember is the date when Tkachuk either accepts or rejects his QO and the start of the season. The only thing that you, fabulous Scorchstack reader that you are, should follow about this saga is whether or not Matthew says yes to that 1 year, $9 million deal. Anything else, its really not worth your time.
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Get it. He scores a bunch of goals on the road. Do you get it.
The Legend of Morris Stefaniw
this guy was a real trip! Don't know why I'd describe him that way
by Floob (@itlooksreal)
Last week, amidst their season long seven game road trip through the best and worst of the Eastern Conference, your Calgary Flames took time out of their busy day to spoil the grand opening of UBS Arena, the new home for the so-called Flames of the East, the New York Islanders, a nickname I don’t care for because I think the Isles “suck ass” and “are boring”.
Seasoned veteran and Flames fourth liner Brad Richardson, prior to the game famous only for being married to a lady who acts in the Gossip Girl reboot on Netflix, added another noteworthy tidbit to his Wikipedia page, by christening the Belmont Park, New York stadium with the first goal scored under its roof (this is not actually in his wikipedia page). Calgary would go on to win the game rather handily, embarrassing the Islanders in front of a bevy of big haired Long Island freaks. The contest was sullied by the visitors, decimating them in their new home, too ashamed to ever emerge to see the light of day ever again. However, in the process of doing so, Richardson made himself part of an interesting bit of trivia.
It turns out that the Flames ruined the big opening night for Nassau Coliseum, the asbestos and rat laden former home of the Islanders, all the way back in the 1972-73 season when the team still listed Atlanta as their home address. A man by the name of Morris Stefaniw scored the inaugural goal at Nassau, forever tainting that grease stain of a building, which also happened to be the first goal in the history of the Flames franchise.
Oh, and it would be the only NHL goal Stefaniw ever scored in his life.
It’s reasonable to think that with all these watershed moments now so attentive top of mind, it would be an ideal time to do a Scorchstack profile on Stefaniw, but unless you want to watch this video - which, if you do, you can tell I obviously wanted to love it, but couldn’t go more than 30 seconds before tapping out - there isn’t a whole lot of his career to go off of, so what I am going to do is pepper in facts from when ex-Major Leaguer Dock Ellis threw a no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates while tripping balls on LSD back in 1970. Let’s see if you can figure out which is which.
A product of North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Morris Stefaniw was the focal point of his hometown Estevan Bruins in the late 60’s, a top centerman in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League and Canadian Major Junior Hockey League, earning a first all star nomination in 1967 to go along with the CMJHL’s most gentlemanly player award. Undrafted, Stefaniw found success playing in the many minor pro hockey leagues of the day, plying his trade in locales such as Oklahoma City and Phoenix.
One fateful spring day in 1970, Stefaniw went to visit a friend in Los Angeles and spent hours holed up in an apartment drinking and doing drugs, causing the centerman to black out and lose track of time. Upon regaining consciousness, Stefaniw, believing it was still the day before and not the afternoon before a big game, dropped a hit of acid two hours before puck drop. Upon being informed by a friend of his err in judgment, he scrambled, while tripping his damn ass off, to get to the airport, and somehow made it onto a plane to San Diego right before puck drop, which apparently was some shit you could get away with in 1970.
After finding meagre success in the Central Leagues, Stefaniw finally got his break in the early 70’s, getting promoted all the way up to the AHL, earning a spot on the Providence Reds. His play on that team finally earned him a spot on the upstart Atlanta Flames in the 1972-73 season, and the kid from Central Saskatchewan made good, scoring the aforementioned first goal in team history, simultaneously notching the first score against the Islanders in their shiny new building, not unlike one Mr. Brad Richardson.
Stefaniw managed to go deep into the game that afternoon, despite being under the influence of lysergic acid diethylamide, colloquially referred to as LSD, or acid. At one point he believed the home plate umpire was Richard Nixon. At another, Jimi Hendrix was up to bat and held a guitar in a hitter’s pose. Hendrix did not collect a hit on that day, mostly because he was not there, and because nobody in the game registered a hit over the course of that outing, while Stefaniw was intoxicated by psychedelic drugs.
After his brief, 13 game stint in Atlanta, Morris returned to the Nova Scotia Voyageurs, and alongside Yvon Lambert and Troy Featherstone, formed the most feared offensive unit in all of minor hockey, as all three players would spend the rest of the AHL season ranked 1-3 in scoring in the AHL.
He would never return to the NHL, and spend the rest of his career bouncing across lower level professional hockey leagues. Perhaps his greatest claim to fame was winning a Lockhart Cup in 1975, the top prize for the best team in the North American Hockey League. Stefaniw took home the championship as a member of the Johnstown Jets, the real life inspiration for the Charlestown Chiefs from the hit film Slap Shot. Stefaniw played alongside Steve, Jack, and Jeff Carlson, better known from the films as the Hanson Brothers.
Stefaniw closed out his hockey playing career one more season, as a member of the 1975-76 Baltimore Clippers of the AHL, before retiring, never to be seen in hockey ever again. He would keep the details of his drug fueled pitching accomplishment out of earshot of the surrounding world until 1984, when he came clean, and as Major League Baseball refuses to release highlights of the game, fans are left to their own imagination when it comes to one of the most bizarre sports accomplishments of our time.
One wonders if Brad Richardson will now try to follow in the footsteps of his Long Island predecessor. If the first year Flame does hope to reach for the Stefaniw legacy, he will have a chance to do it better; while officially throwing a no-hitter, Stefaniw did indeed walk 8 batters, plunking one more. As long as Brad Richardson can top those numbers while being way fucking out of his goddamn skull on acid, you have to like his chances.
Why the Flames are winning the cup
No, YOU'RE being irrational
by Ramz (@ramzreboot)
The Flames are doing good. Naturally, everyone will look at every niche stat and the last time this happened either they won the cup or another team who pulled off this specific stat won the cup that year. So of course, I’m contributing to that because I love those niche stats. Can’t get enough of those niche stats, baby.
Let’s get into them and why the Flames are for sure winning the cup. You better appreciate my hard effort in this because I’m missing out on watching The Jonas Brothers Family Roast for this.
Andrew Mangiapane became the second player in Flames history to score nine goals through his first nine road games of a season, per @PR_NHL. He joins only Gary Roberts in this stat. Wow, Gary Roberts hey? I wonder if he’s ever won a cup with the Flames. Look it up.
On November 18th, per @SNStats, through the Flames’ first 17 games, they are the first team in modern NHL history (since 1943) with 6 shutouts. The last team to do so was the 1938-39 Bruins. Look at the last team to do that. 1938-39 Bruins? Oh, interesting, go ahead and look up who the 1939 Stanley Cup champs were.
Since their 17th game, they ended up recording another shutout, becoming the first NHL team since offensive forward passes were allowed in 1929 to record 7 shutouts within the first 19 games of a season (Per @SNStats). Since we have no other team to compare this to, it’s only right that they’re winning the cup.
Per @PR_NHL, Andrew Mangiapane became the third player in NHL history to score at least 14 of his first 15 goals of a season on the road joining two other players, one being John LeClair who, you guessed it, won a cup with the Montreal Canadiens. Crazy how coincidences work…
On November 23rd, per @PR_NHL, the Flames played their 20th game of the season (12-3-5, 29 points). The most points through the first 20 games of a season in franchise history are as follows:
31 in 2001-02
30 in 1993-94
30 in 1978-79 (Doesn’t count, it was in Atlanta. Fuck you NHL PR)
29 in 2021-22 (current)
29 in 1988-89
Oh hey, they have 29 points through 20 games this season? That’s cool, let’s look at when else they reached 29 points. Oh what’s that, 1989? Say no more.
A last point is that Mark Giordano is in Seattle now. He wasn’t getting any younger and it was time to move on to hopefully get him a cup. Well unfortunately Seattle isn’t doing very well and will most likely miss the playoffs. This means that of course, the Flames will win the Cup this year after Gio left to play for a sucky team. What else did you think would happen? Oh, you thought Gio would go to a GOOD team? You fool. You absolute idiot.
Up Next Week
The Flames are having a quiet week for once, only playing the Jets and the Penguins. What is this, the airport zoo? (ed note: ???????????????)
Hrudey’s back on duty after a lengthy absence due to Covid protocol. We’re all happy to have him back!
We have a new secret Ramz article that we’re not publishing. Will it be published next week? Tune in and find out.