Follow Colin on Twitter! Follow @ColinDJD **If you are interested in sponsorship or advertising your business in the Calgary / Alberta area on this column, please send a message for more information by clicking on the “Contact… button at the top of the page.**
When things go so right, it’s easy to get caught up in the positivity. Josh Jooris is scoring hat-tricks, Karri Ramo has won 5 starts in a row, and Jiri Hudler appears to be unstoppable at this point with 10 points in his past 5 games, and now 25 on the year only 1 back from Mark Giordano for the team lead.
As I was watching the game last night though there were some issues that stood out to me, and I hope that Brad Treliving and company are taking notice of them as well. Afterall, the time to address areas of weakness is when your team is playing well and your assets are worth top dollar. The last thing we want is to be forced to try and move one of our good young players in the midst of a prolonged losing streak…
Anyway, here are the things that I noticed:
1. Derek Engelland is bad.
It’s not just the contract. Even if he was being paid $800K per season, if I were Brad Treliving I’d be looking for an upgrade. The Engelland signing was a glaring mistake from the second that it happened, and it’s getting worse every time that Derek’s on the ice. For those of you who need more than just the eye-test, the stats back me up here. When Engelland is on the ice good things stop happening and bad things happen regularly.
http://war-on-ice.com/hexplayers.html
2. Sven Baertschi needs to either play with better linemates, or be sent back to Adirondack.
Sven has only played about 100 minutes at 5 on 5 so far this season. Of those 100 minutes, less than 5 have been alongside of either Monahan, Hudler, Gaudreau, or Glencross. He has played significant time alongside Byron, Bollig, and Setoguchi. Sven is an offensive player, and he isn’t being played in a situation where his skills can be utilized. His current deployment isn’t helping him, or the team, and it either needs to change, or he needs to go back down to the AHL where he can at least continue to develop.
Mason Raymond has now joined Matt Stajan and Joe Colborne at Flames practices and it won’t be long until additional roster decisions need to be made. Corban Knight was reassigned to Adirondack, but it won’t be long until Brad Treliving is forced to make some tough roster decisions as Jooris and Granlund have demonstrated that they belong on the NHL roster.
Who will stay, and who will go? What should this lineup look like, and what moves should be made to address the weaknesses in this roster?
I want to hear your thoughts in the comment section. Let’s play a little “Hockeybuzz ‘15 Armchair GM mode…. What would you be looking to do if you had Brad Treliving’s job?
Thanks for reading!