With the Calgary Flames holding on to the second Western Conference wild card spot on Feb. 21, and the NHL trade deadline one week away, the team is turning its sights towards a heated playoff race. Although the Flames sit in the playoffs right now, the Los Angeles Kings are just two points back and have a game in hand.
Needing depth on the blue line, general manager Brad Treliving acquired Michael Stone for relative peanuts on Monday and although Stone is having a down year he’s still a worthwhile pick up for the third pair and someone who you may even say is bound to recover on a better Flames team.
But the Flames’ post-season hopes won’t be decided by the contributions of Stone or Matt Bartkowski, who the team added late last week. Rather, the Flames will need an uptick in production from its two young stars Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan, who are surprisingly third and fourth in team scoring, behind Mikael Backlund and Matthew Tkachuk. [snippet]
“I look at it this way, the good news is we’re getting support from guys underneath,” Treliving said on Hockey Central at Noon on Tuesday. “Backlund, Tkachuk, Frolik, quite frankly, a lot of nights this year that line’s carried us.
“I think when you look at Johnny and locally here people have talked about the struggles he’s had, you can’t worry about what’s happened in the first 59 (games). Johnny’s our best player, our most talented player, he’s got a chance to pull us along here in the next 20-some-odd games… I think, any time a player misses training camp, I don’t care what it is, you feel like you’re chasing a bit. And Johnny missed training camp, he got injured, and there’s been ups and downs. I think in the last little bit, the real encouraging sign the last half dozen games is he’s getting looks. We’ve charted his chances and his chances are at the same level he’s seen in the first couple years. His shooting percentage is down and it’s not falling for him right now. So those are the areas you just have to keep plugging away, there’s nothing else you can do.”
With 11 goals and 35 points in 49 games, Gaudreau’s .71 points per game rate is the lowest of his three-year career and as Treliving noted, the goals have all but dried up recently. Gaudreau has just one goal in his past 19 games, over which time he’s accumulated 48 shots.
Monahan is also producing at a pace (0.59 PPG) slower than he has over the past two seasons. He has nine goals and 13 points over the same 19-game stretch as Gaudreau, so the Flames will need more from both of them if they’re going to get across the playoff cut-off line in April.
What’s behind the struggles of these two? While Gaudreau’s shooting percentage is way down from his career average and Monahan’s assist totals have taken a tumble, money and the new expectations that come with it could also be a factor.
Both players are in the first years of new contracts, their first extensions coming off entry-level deals. With Guadreau making $6.75 million against the cap and Monahan coming in at $6.375 million for at least the next five seasons, the youngsters (Gaudreau is 23, Monahan is 22) are two of the top three highest paid players on the Flames. Whereas in the past it would take years for players to hit this kind of pay rate, it’s the new normal in the NHL today and the weight of it can initially have a negative impact. [sidebar]
“We pulled it up this summer (a list) of younger players that have gone from one pay level to the next and it’s surprising in that first year of the contract some of the struggles those players have,” Treliving said. “There’s expectations around them, they hear about it every day. When things are going great there’s lots of hugs and when things aren’t there’s people that want to throw rocks. You need to find a way to work through that.
“One of the things I said with both Sean and Johnny at the beginning of the year is we’re not paying you to be different players, we’re paying you because you’re good players and for what you’ve done and what you’re going to do. It’s not about coming in and re-inventing the wheel and changing things.”
So as the Flames push through the four remaining games of their five-game road trip and then move into a stretch where they play eight of nine games at home, the players to watch won’t be Stone or any other additions they may make around the trade deadline. The real difference makers the Flames need to get back into the Stanley Cup Playoffs this spring are the play of their goaltenders, and their two best players already on the roster.
“We know they’re going to break out,” Treliving said. “We’re in a spot here where we’re right in the mix and now we need them to be…not saviours and not anything else, but we need them to be good players and pull us along.”
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