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Notes on the Calgary Flames' coaching search, the Kris Russell trade and more:
1) Yet another coach has thrown his name into the hat for the Flames' coaching vacancy. This time it's former Minnesota Wild bench boss Mike Yeo, who is reportedly expected to interview with both Calgary and Anaheim.
On social media the possibility of Yeo in Calgary was met with mixed feelings, to put it nicely, but I think he's a better coach (and option) than he's being credit for. He seemed to be more progressive and get better results as his time with the Wild went on.
After the Wild posted poor numbers in his first year they managed to control more than 50% of the scoring chances at 5 v 5 in three of his final four seasons. For comparison sake Bob Hartley was unable to do that even once during his tenure with the Flames.
I don't know if Yeo is the best candidate on the market but I think he'd be more thn adequate and is a much better option than, say, Randy Carlyle.
2) The Dallas Stars were bounced from the playoffs by St. Louis on Wednesday night. As a result they will not have to send Calgary their 1st round pick in the upcoming draft.
The final haul for a couple months of Kris Russell is as follows: Jyrki Jokipakka, Brett Pollock and a 2016 2nd round pick.
As it stands the Flames now have one 1st round pick, three 2nd round picks, and 10 draft picks total.
3) A quick note on the Russell trade: It's good to get three young assets for a player that makes you worse at 5 v 5 but the Flames really didn't get anything they can hang their hat on.
Jokipakka is probably nothing more than a 3rd pairing guy, Pollock's numbers were nothing special for a 2nd round pick in his draft+2 year, and this year's 2nd is a couple years away from being a couple years away. They still did well in this trade because, quite frankly, Russell isn't very good but it kind of feels like they received more quantity than quality without that 1st round pick.
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Draft lottery not too kind to Calgary Flames
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