Substack Issue #39 - Everyone at The Scorchstack Network loves Mike Smith and we’re incredibly proud of him
Damn, he blew up. Subscribe to Scorchstack.
Now that the hockey season is over, Scorchstack can truly return to our roots. We founded this right as the Flames were eliminated in last year’s playoffs, so having no hockey to write about is a place of strength for us. We are entering this stretch in the best shape of our lives. What a treat for you, dear reader.
What’s inside?
Only you can decide what Floob should do to align the cosmos into the Flames signing Alexander Ovechkin.
We no longer have to see the 2021 Flames, and to be honest there are some of them we don’t want to see in 2022 either.
Mike gives a eulogy to the 2021 Edmonton Oilers. Yes, this is the #1 Calgary Flames newsletter, of course we’re talking about the Edmonton Oilers.
Scorchstack gets into targeted content with an article that is only meant for Milan Lucic about the joys of moving to Seattle.
Since last issue
The Flames won their first-round series against the Vancouver Canucks and were rewarded by watching the Edmonton Oilers get swept.
Scorchstack #38 was prime reading material for 90 minutes before the last Flames game of the season, and then it gracefully transitioned to great reading material for the rest of time for different reasons.
Mondays are no longer Big, rendering them utterly useless. Cling to the last Big Monday Thing if you need to grieve.
Another PHWA scribe joins the hallowed halls of Scorchstack with Morkstack.
What Will Floob Do To Get Alex Ovechkin To Sign In Calgary?
Hopefully, the real answer is just "do an impassioned speech that impresses him"
by Floob (@itlooksreal)
The year was 2017. Rumour ‘round the Saddlesphere was there was a glimmer of hope that your Calgary Flames were in negotiations with senior citizen free agent and maybe top five all-time hockey legend Jaromir Jagr. Despite being extremely 45 years old, Jagr had just come off a season with the Florida Panthers in which he competed in all 82 contests and was better than 0.5 ppg in an elevated depth role.
If Jagr could indeed make it to Calgary, he could occupy a role in the lineup that would otherwise go to a Jankowski, Lazar, Brouwer, or Hathaway, and no one wanted that. Further, he is a living legend, just an absolute all-timer, and having him play for the hometown team would just be really cool.
Suffice to say, I really wanted this, and was willing to get nuts to make it happen:
You don’t make a claim like that unless it’s for something you really want and you’re SERIOUS about it, but also not crazy, so you would just do something mildly irritating that won’t leave any permanent physical damage or have loved ones implore you to seek help. Sacrifices have to be made to facilitate real change, but also like not the worst sacrifices, sometimes.
You know what happened next: Jagr did indeed sign in Calgary, played a glorious 22 games that we mostly don’t remember but we still know they happened, and I sat down and read every drumpf tweet I possibly could. Man, did that suck. But I’m a man of my word, and it was worth it. Jagr Flames jerseys exist now because my actions are powerful.
Fast forward to 2021. There is a phenomenon at play right now that none of us ever thought we’d see: Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin, the greatest goal scorer of all time is a free agent. There is a chance that the still absolutely prolific Russian goal-scoring machine could don a hockey jersey that doesn’t say Washington on it. He could, in theory, start wearing Calgary Flames silks. It’s beyond a long shot, but I want it to happen, and very badly.
I’m aware of my own powers, and I’m cognizant that in my own special way I can lend a hand and help make this happen. I also realize that signing a generational talent who, while being closer to the end of his career than the beginning of it, is still one of the premiere talents in the NHL, is going to be harder to acquire than a man over the age of 40 who is willing to play just about anywhere instead of retiring. Getting Ovi to touch down in Scorchstack country will require my powers leveling up.
I’ll need your help.
I’ve whittled the myriad of actions I can bring to the table down to six. Six things I absolutely don’t want to do but still will if it means Alex Ovechkin becomes a Calgary Flame. Some of you will ask “will you eat cat shit, like that guy in Toronto did?” and of course the answer is no. I want Ovi here as much as anyone, but I am not a weird freak. I’ve had a head injury before, but it didn’t damage the part of my brain that processes dignity. So there are limits here. But I think the remaining options will still signal that I mean business. I’ll go over them and then you, my dear sweet Scorchstack friends, will make this a democratic process by voting on a winner.
Option 1: Watch everything on Netflix with a Ricky Gervais credit
This includes one standup special that is going to make me want to stick forks in my ear, and his legitimately good version of the Office isn’t on Netflix, so this is going to hurt. He will ask me 30 times if I’m offended, and the answer every time will be yes.
Option 2: Read every Lin Manuel Miranda tweet
Most people don’t know this, but Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton because the President wanted to do this tweet first:
Option 3: Recreate the Louis Domingue cooking videos
It’s well known by now that Louis Domingue kinda creeps me out. I’m relatively certain he doesn’t love his children. But the guy sure does love to cook. He’s put a few videos on YouTube where he makes crepes and banana bread and other nibbles in his fancy kitchen. I am a treat boy and by recreating these videos in my much sadder kitchen, I would make myself some damn treats.
Option 4: Read One (1) JK Rowling book
The only thing worse than a TERF is a TERF using flouncy language denouncing the rights of trans women, and who also created an entire universe your teenager is obsessed with.
Option 5: Search out and like every tweet where someone asks the Art Decider account if a tweet is art
Holy fuck I *REALLY* do not want to do this.
Option 6: Watch the What Does The Fox Say Episode of Glee 10 times
I don’t really know what this is about, but it sounds awful and ramz assures me I’ll want to die doing it. (Note: she said watch it 1000 times, but there’s a bit of a time crunch here and I feel like watching it 10 times will still have the intended effect on my psyche)
Vote Here:
Watch Everything on Netflix with a Ricky Gervais Credit
Read every Lin Manuel Miranda tweet
Recreate the Louis Domingue cooking videos
Read one (1) JK Rowling book
Search/Like every tweet where someone asks @ArtDecider "art?"
Watch the What Does The Fox Say Episode of Glee 10 times
As mentioned, this is where you come in. I’ll cut off the voting before next week’s issue comes out, and I’ll begin my Ovi to Calgary campaign from there.
Don’t say I never did anything for you.
2021 Flames I do not want to see on the Flames anymore
Pretty self-explanatory
by Christian (@decayinwtheboys)
As every Flames fan figured out sometime around February or whenever the team first dipped below .500, this upcoming offseason would be one with tough decisions that would shake fans to their cores and alter the team’s history.
However, there are some (hopefully!) very easy decisions to make. The Flames, as usual, filled up their roster with castoffs and replacement level duds who wound up playing like castoffs and replacement level duds. Let’s say goodbye to them while we can before the Flames bring in a few more veteran minimum-contract players who we’re assured are going to only be around for insurance purposes and then they’re in the top six.
Milan Lucic - I’ll admit that I tricked myself into thinking Vegas was going to take Troy Brouwer in their expansion draft. That was hopeful of me, but it made so much sense: his former GM was there, he was a leader, he had all of those great intangibles, Vegas needed to hit the cap floor, his contract wasn’t that bad, etc, etc.
Lucic has all those superficial connections to Seattle too: leader, tough and easy to cheer for, from the Pacific Northwest, Seattle needs to hit the cap floor, his contract isn’t that bad (only $9M in cash owed versus $10.5M in cap hits, modified NTC), etc, etc. It’s a perfect match, they should take him!
You can be a big 1000cic fan if you like. I can certainly understand that even if I don’t agree with it, but he’s a $5.25M drag on a team that could really use that free space for something else. The day that space is available can’t come soon enough.
Michael Stone - To start off, I’ll admit that this is the most extreme case of wishful thinking in this piece that just said “I hope someone takes Lucic from us for free.” Stone has survived four head coaches, blood clots, injuries, AHL demotions, a pandemic, numerous salary cap crunches, being bought out, not being very good at hockey, promises to dramatically improve this team, and he’s still here. He will never leave.
Somehow, he keeps turning 7D injury insurance contracts into regular playing time. He will probably be here again, half because the calendar will flip to September and the Flames have a $700,000 hole burning in their pocket, half because he actually did a good job this year and we’ll probably get sold on the idea that he’s a Sutter Guy. But please, I do not need this again. No one does.
Brett Ritchie - I’ll admit that it’s hard to be mad at Brett Ritchie the person. He seems like a nice guy who is just trying to scrape together an NHL career and is doing a pretty all right job for someone who probably spends his offseason drifting from bus station to bus station. Hard to hate a journeyman like that.
However, Brett Ritchie is 6’4”, right-handed, and will be every coach’s first option to give the top six some life whenever someone is on a scoring slump. You think that would only be a Geoff Ward thing, but it was somehow a Darryl Sutter thing too. I don’t want to send Ritchie and his bindle full of hockey gear packing because I hate him, but I just don’t trust any coach to use him in a responsible manner.
Joakim Nordstrom - I am struggling to think of the defining Joakim Nordstrom moment this season. Him scoring the Flames’ first preseason goal, an omen of bad things to come? Getting injured for like 10 games and no one noticing he left? Buhhhh? Guhhhh?
Dominik Simon- Also forget he was here. Sorry pal, hopefully Sidney Crosby needs a winger again.
Nikita Nesterov- He seemed like a good bet! Didn’t work out, smell ya later.
Connor Mackey- Harsh for a guy who has played six games as a rookie? Probably, but if I have to hear Kelly Hrudey/Cassie Campbell gush over how physical he is, I’m going to start throwing up. He gives me Michael Stone vibes and I also don’t need that in my life.
Louis Domingue- The Flames don’t have a backup goalie for next season. That’s a problem because a) they have a bad track record with free agent goaltenders b) they have a bad track record with bringing guys back just because they’re familiar with them. Floob’s valiant #Nomingue2021 campaign was ultimately unsuccessful, but if we keep the pressure on, #Nomingue2022 will be a triumph.
Zac Rinaldo/Buddy Robinson- These are the same guy. We don’t need two of them, but we also don’t need one of them either.
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Remembering the 2̶0̶1̶6̶ ̶2̶0̶1̶7̶ ̶2̶0̶1̶8̶ ̶2̶0̶1̶9̶ ̶2̶0̶2̶0̶ 2021 Edmonton Oilers
If Ken Holland’s poison won’t take you, my dogs will.
Life is beautiful sometimes. The same day that Johnny Gaudreau got his college degree, the Oilers are swept. I was screaming at midnight and getting my dogs to join in howling as we celebrate this sweep is joyous and pretending like it isn’t is just disingenuous. I love it and I will cherish this moment for a long time.
If there was any substantial proof and I mean a real burden of proof that a higher power exists then look no further than the myopic front office that has given us these Edmonton Oilers. Their fans seething with rage, teary-eyed, and voices hoarse with open wounds from screaming at their televisions at midnight after an overtime elimination to the haplessly designed Winnipeg Jets. This was their easiest path to any meaningful progress in the playoffs, but they found a way to lose regardless.
I guess you could say the Oilers live rent-free in my head, a classic Hockey Twitter phrase where the tweeter has nothing of value to say but needs to pretend like they are superior (they’re not). This is my 15th year living in this city and I feel like I may be one of the few qualified voices to discuss this team because everyone around me worships this team. I’m as much of an Edmontonian as the guy on Twitter with eight flags in his bio, whose only claim to fame is Lowetide following them, and who constantly refers to this section of the province as “oil country”.
It didn’t take long to spin every take imaginable the morning after they were swept and I am going to put on another 10lbs during the pandemic as I gorge myself on any of them.
“Is McDavid going to demand a trade?”
“Maybe McDavid should learn to play better in his own end.”
“Are they going to re-sign Mike Smith?”
“How they squander the best years of the league’s most dominant force since Sidney Crosby burst forth from the giant womb that is Atlantic Canada?”
And my personal favourite: Is there any hope on the horizon?
Let me quickly answer these questions that will be bandied about like a joint at a high school bush party in my hometown:
No, but maybe I can will it into existence.
He did, but please keep blaming your messiah.
It appears they will try to and this is fantastic.
They did it by doing what the Edmonton Oilers always do: never actually doing the right thing years prior only to shoot themselves in the feet.
There is no hope. You will suffer louder until cessation occurs.
For everything that he represents on the ice as the de facto benchmark for excellence, McDavid does represent even more to the game from a marketing perspective. A thriving, successful Connor McDavid - just like Crosby, Wayne Gretzky, and Mario Lemieux before him - should impact the livelihood of this increasingly niche North American sport. Instead, he sits in Edmonton, shackled to a radiator in Rogers Place, and buried beneath myopic hockey operational decision making that is offsetting truly historic performance.
At this point, you could task the Oilers front office with making popcorn and they might end up setting fire to the bag in the microwave. They’d argue that a few kernels are edible but the rest is a charred excuse devoid of actual enjoyment. Unfortunately, it isn’t the job of these two edible kernels to make this a finished product. McDavid can only do so much, especially if you watch that terrible Stephen A. Smith clip and think wow yeah that’s a great point.
This isn’t to suggest his 105 points in 56 games isn’t impressive; hardly from that, but what does it matter if the regular season in his McDavid’s eyes means nothing. That’s the key in all of this, his goals are obvious and the organization hasn’t aligned with those. All the more critical is that his absolute best years, the years he can spend terrorizing every opposition despite non-calls in his favor, being maimed, or worse are a window. And it’s not his job to elevate to an even higher plane.
Speaking of Ken Holland, I truly enjoy the praising of him acknowledging that isn’t the year to go all-in is the right call either (mere days ago). Let’s keep building him more runway for him to never actually utilize. After all, just because your failed experiment of Andreas Athanasiou didn’t pan out the way you wanted doesn’t mean risk aversion is the best option for you. It’s painfully obvious: instead, you should continue to maximize the actual window, with the actual reason your team can compete, with actual support.
Is he going to do it? Fuck no because that’s not Ken Holland who mentioned Detroit about 15 times during the press conference.
If your GM isn’t cognizant that there is a ticking clock of your core pieces, within a specific age range - their absolute primes - to compete and you’re not finding ways to give yourself a fighting chance with tangible depth then you’re doomed to repeat the same cycle of shortcomings so many teams have fallen victim to; including this very team under Scorchstack Hall of Famer Peter Chiarelli.
Everyone at The Scorchstack Network loves Mike Smith and we’re incredibly proud of him for garnering so much attention, including a potential extension. Is he the guy you want to allocate resources to when you have key pieces needing actual support? No, but please make it happen, Kenny. He’s going to be 40 for next season and the chances his groin explodes, taking out potential spectators in the first row is 3:1 on Bodog right now.
Holland can come out and tout a thinly-veiled threat that a buyout could happen too, like he did this morning. Who is it going to be? The Real Deal James Neal? It’s the most sensible. Zack Kassian who is on year one of a four-year $12.8M extension? Mikko Koskinen? You have options, but even if you rid yourself of one, you still carry one or two of them. But it will get Holland closer to being a “real team,” which apparently the Edmonton Oilers are not.
The presumption that Seattle will take on an asset of value to eat a contract might happen, but you also might randomly explode on the toilet. And knowing Edmonton, they’ll use the free cap space to give Tyson Barrie or worse a disgustingly hilarious contract that they may never live down.
All of this is to say that nothing makes me more excited for the offseason and next season’s Edmonton Oilers. The misery they inflict on their fans year over year is something I’ve grown dependent on, to be honest. I would trade success or a Stanley Cup victory for my beloved Calgary Flames to see their Alberta rival struggle to do anything consistently or successfully.
I mean that. Spite and contempt hold me aloft when it comes to this rivalry; even if the purgatory we’re all seemingly trapped in when it comes to this team is endless. Is deriving euphoria and joy from this team’s suffering incredibly evil? Maybe. Will it deter me from feasting on this painful opera? No.
Great reasons to move to Seattle
This article is intended for Milan Lucic. I don't know why you'd read it if you aren't Milan Lucic
by Nathan (@hanoten)
With the expansion draft being the next big event in the Calgary Flames’ calendar, we know that the Flames will be losing one player to the draft.
Sure, pundits have debated about how it could be captain Mark Giordano, but I don’t care for that so I won’t acknowledge it. Perhaps like Vegas, Seattle selects a soon-to-depart hometown UFA a la Derek Ryan, but that’s boring.
It’s going to be Bill Masterton nominee Milan Lucic, and I thank him for his service in Calgary. Lucic has grown to love Calgary, and many here have returned that admiration. It might make it tough for him to leave. I’m here to help with that.
I found a real estate company’s blog about why you should move to Seattle, so hopefully these reasons help Milan. I even cross-referenced their reasons with previous tweets that Milan made to see if there’s already a connection there.
Seattle is the most dog-friendly city in America
Look if this blog says it, who am I to disagree? And wouldn’t you know it, Lucic loves his dogs. He has tweeted about them exactly once, but I’m sure the tweet:love ratio is not 1:1.
Washington state has no personal income tax
Lucic has never tweeted about taxes, but he has said nice things about the owners of the Calgary Flames, so we can assume by correlation that he’s anti-taxes.
You can get some of the best sushi outside of Japan
Lucic rarely tweets about food, but in 2018 he did tweet with a creepy stare over a menu about a restaurant in Sweden that he was happy to be at courtesy of friend and former teammate Loui Eriksson. I checked their menu, which was easy to understand because all Scorchies speak Swedish thanks to our heritage, and found they serve lots of sashimi and other fish dishes. Perfect match for Looch.
Young people are flocking to the city
And many of them aren’t contractually drafted!
It’s a sports town
None of the cheap jokes here I could make are worth it, this one is pretty obvious. It should be said though that we as The Scorchstack Network (TSN) are decidedly pro-Mariners.
The beer
Lucic has never tweeted about beer, which is probably for the best. Also, this blog just forgot to make a sentence out of this point? “The beer” okay yeah great thanks never heard of a city having “the beer” before.
Some of the best restaurants in the world are in Seattle
We’ve already established Lucic’s fondness for restaurants.
You’re never far from great coffee
Lucic has never tweeted about coffee so I cheated because there’s no way he wouldn’t be interested in the world’s first Starbucks (i.e. a Starbucks with an unnecessarily long line). So I googled Milan Lucic Starbucks and quickly found the evidence I needed to make my point. Thank you to forever a Flame and current ESPN poster boy Andrew Ference.
The healthy vibes will rub off on you
Okay first off I never want any vibes rubbing off on me so thanks for that. Second, Lucic is a pro athlete, so you know he’s all about healthy. He even described his healthy game day meals back in 2013, which knowing hockey athletes and their love of routines I can only assume he’s eaten 1014cic times.
It’s one of the friendliest cities in America
Please enjoy this photo that Lucic tweeted where he runs into his friends and they make this 6’4 man look like he’s ready for his first year of high school. Puberty’s gonna suck, Milan!
And there you have it. From the trusted opinions of the Xome real estate blog, Milan you are going to love it in Seattle. Be sure to write a postcard!
Up Next Week
The NHL offseason is coming up, but Scorchstack remains committed to being the #1 Calgary Flames newsletter all the time so you don’t need to worry about it.
Darryl Sutter makes one too many eye-rolls at a certain PHWA member and he responds the only way he knows how: with way too many adjectives.
We unveil a very special episode of the Scorchstack Podcast.
Just like the Calgary Flames, we have our 40th season. Unlike the Calgary Flames, ours ends in success.
Someone sent me the Glee Fox link 5 hours ago, if I had to watch the song itself once you should have to watch the whole episode 10 times. Only seems fair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOlSeycwrxk