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As Calgary Flames fans wait for the official announcement that their longstanding goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff will retire, many begin to question just how strong their team will be between the pipes over the upcoming season.
As the only tender returning from last year, Joey MacDonald appears that he may have a strong challenger for the backup position to Karri Ramo who is thought to be the Flames best option for starter. The Flames acquired 26 year old Reto Berra in a trade that shipped Jay Bouwmeester to the St Louis Blues. Given that the Blues had no need for an additional backup and or starter themselves, Calgary decided to take a flyer on the inexperienced NHL goaltender.
Berra was drafted in 2006 by the Blues and has yet to play an NHL game. He has been playing overseas in the Elite Swiss league and has represented Switzerland internationally a few times over the course of his short career. While his Swiss league numbers are very difficult to assess given the difference of ice size and opponents, his time spent playing against other NHLers in the Worlds tournaments etc., are not.
During his most recent appearance at the Worlds, playing against other NHLers such as potential teammate Jiri Hudler, he posted an eye-popping 1.00 GAA and .967 save percentage. Berra recently took part in the Flames rookie development camp as one of the eldest players to attend as the tender felt he wanted as much practice on the smaller ice surface as he could get.
Given that the Flames brass has yet to get a strong look at either Berra or Karri Ramo on North American ice against NHL players, who exactly will start for the Calgary Flames is not quite decided at this point. However, given the current list of goalies challenging for spots, it would be safe to assume that Berra and MacDonald will be fighting for relief duties to Ramo for this upcoming season. Berra and Ramo should be exciting to watch for fans because, despite being potential gambles (to an extent), these guys have demonstrated their talents overseass and would be considered as low risk high reward.
Berra, in addition to Baertschi has been invited to the Swiss Olympic camp and he will be competing for a spot between the pipes against guys like Jonas Hiller and Martin Gerber. While I would not expect Berra to challenge Hiller for the starting position, he is a viable option as the backup tender for 2014 and would be the 3rd Flames invitee to Olympic camps thus far. The only other name Calgary fans can expect to hear would be Jiri Hudler who has yet to hear from the Czech team.
Should either goalie play beyond their expectations, the Flames could have lucked out in replacing Kiprusoff, who himself was brought in to the Flames organization at the age of 27. Similar to Berra and Ramo, Kiprusoff was drafted into the NHL in the later rounds of the NHL draft and would spend the first couple years of his career overseas. Though it took him almost two years to be a starter once in the NHL, he was given a similar opportunity when Flames starting tender Roman Turek was injured and the franchise had no other options available to them. The only notable difference between the two scenarios is that Berra and Ramo will join a much weaker roster than did Kiprusoff. Either way, the potential is there for both young(er) goalies.
The Flames will continue to look for improvements throughout the rest of their roster as they continue to be weak down the middle, and could foresee having problems offensively. However, defensively and in net they might just be strong enough to not get shelled every night provided they maintain a stronger defensive system as displayed by head coach Bob Hartley last season.
At this point in time I would not expect that the Flames are panicking with respect to any “holes” in their roster. They have too many question marks coming into the season with certain acquisitions and younger players, and as such I hold that it will likely take a month or two of play before they can properly assess where they stand.
This is not to say that the Flames are oblivious to their apparent shortcomings as a team, however they have no real need to rush anymore moves during this offseason as a few players could surprise the masses and change a few perspectives.
Thanks for reading!
Calgary Flames Blogger • 
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