1) Earlier in the off-season I wrote that the Calgary Flames should strongly consider buying out Lance Bouma.
Obviously that won't happen at this point but I think buying him out would have been the best route to take even with GM Brad Treliving carefully dancing around the team's cap issues.
The Flames' cap savings were part of my logic behind a buy out - the Flames would have saved $1.45M in 2016-17 and $1.55M in 2017-18 before taking on a $750K cap hit the two years after - but for me the key factor is that Bouma isn't very useful and the team would be better off giving someone else his roster spot.
Besides a fluky 2014-15 season where Bouma scored 16 goals and shot 15.6% (his career high otherwise is 6.1%) he hasn't really accomplished anything in the NHL. It's clear that offense isn't his forte and his defensive game is much worse than a lot of people believe.
Over the last two seasons 12 forwards logged at least 900 5 v 5 minutes for the Flames. Of those 12 only Mason Raymond was on the ice for more shot attempts against per 60.
Unsurprisingly his shot suppression woes carried over to the penalty kill as, among six regular PKers over the last two seasons, Bouma has the worst numbers of the bunch.
With Bouma on the ice at 4 v 5 the Flames allow 113 shot attempts per 60. For comparison sake they allowed ~88/60 with Josh Jooris on the ice and ~91/60 with Mikael Backlund.
Even 20/21-year-old Sean Monahan posted better numbers and I've talked about how his defensive game isn't as good as many want to believe.
I imagine the Flames wish to give Bouma another season under a new coaching staff to try and prove his worth but, quite frankly, I think it's a lost cause.
We'll see if that's the case in a few months.
2) Michael Frolik isn't a big goal scorer (his career high is 21) and needs a ton of shots in order to fill the net with any regularity but I don't think people appreciate just how good he is at getting into good spots offensively and generating shots.
Over the last two seasons Frolik has averaged almost 17 individual shot attempts per 60 minutes of 5 v 5. He ranks above Taylor Hall, Jamie Benn, Logan Couture and Corey Perry, among many others, while coming in just below Blake Wheeler and Phil Kessel in that regard.
Frolik doesn't have the caliber of shot to score on a high percentage of his looks (he is a career 7.9% shooter) but he sure does a good job of generating them.
There's a lot of value in that because, even if Frolik isn't scoring, that means the Flames have the puck and are spending significant time in the offensive zone when he is on the ice.
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