On paper, the Calgary Flames should be a lot better than they have been so far this season.

They have high-end forward talent, they have probably the best top-four defense in the league and Mike Smith has been a lot better than anyone had any right to expect going into the season.

So it leads to a pretty natural question: Why are they just kind of middling within both the Pacific Division and the West as a whole?

It probably shouldn’t surprise you to learn that while they have a pretty solid group at the top of the lineup, the bottom of the roster is pretty bad, and can’t get anything at all settled. While Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan plus their winger du jour are typically dominant — both Jaromir Jagr and Micheal Ferland are getting top-notch results with them in relatively limited time so far — and the 3M line (Matt Tkachuk, Mikael Backlund and Michael Frolik) deserves a lot of praise as one of the best lines in hockey (which it will get in a minute), Glen Gulutzan can’t find anything that works in the bottom six. And when the top guys are playing about two-thirds of the game, that still leaves another one-third in which the Flames get caved in.

And again, part of that is because Gulutzan has no answers for how to put together an effective group when the Gaudreau/Monahan or 3M groups are off the ice. The only lines that are really sticking for any significant amount of time (in part due to injuries, yes) are Matt Stajan, Troy Brouwer and either Tanner Glass or Kris Versteeg, and Curtis Lazar, Mark Jankowski and Sam Bennett. A huge chunk of that time goes to the Stajan/Brouwer groups, and they’re getting beat in just about every regard by low-end talent.

Injuries have been an issue, sure, but the fact the Flames haven’t really found a workable solution for the bottom of the roster is what’s keeping them down. They’re a little above water in terms of possession (not including Sunday night’s game) and have been a little unlucky shooting the puck, but that’s below what their talent level “should” be.

Based on the most commonly used groups the Flames have employed this season, this is something resembling the typical Calgary lineup:

Obviously if both Jagr and Ferland are in the lineup, that bumps Lazar out, and you’re gonna keep Glass in the press box if you feel like you don’t need to beat someone to death. But to this point, that’s the most common Flames lineup, and if that’s the case you’re looking at a team with a 55 percent xGF share, and almost 57 percent Corsi. It doesn’t exactly work like that, of course, but this means that if Calgary had been able to ice this group for all its time, it’d be in much better shape. Without one of those four lines (who have played more than 60 percent of the team’s 5-on-5 TOI) on the ice, Calgary is closer to 44 percent possession and less than 43 percent in expected goals.

It’s a real problem. The good news is that you can probably live with the Monahan and Jankowski lines getting extremely sheltered in terms of zone starts, if not in quality of competition, because Gulutzan is deploying Stajan and Backlund’s groups in such heavily defensive roles. Both are out-performing what you might expect given how they’re used, though maybe you’d like to see a little more offense from the Stajan line than the zero goals they’ve scored so far. The problem, too, is that Gulutzan just kinda has to stash these older guys with bad contracts somewhere in the lineup, and this is probably the best way to do it. That’s not ideal.

In practice of late, the Flames have kept Jagr away from the Monahan/Gaudreau pair and instead put him with Bennett and Jankowski. Ferland’s gotten a lot of positive results in more time together with the top line, so while he’s certainly not top-line talent, the continuity there would probably be welcome. Meanwhile, having a possession machine like Jagr on the ice to “create space” for two skilled but not-exactly-tough very young players is a pretty effective use.

When used together, albeit for only about 19 minutes at 5-on-5, Jagr and Bennett were only okay. Great in possession, but a lot of their shot attempts got blocked and a good percentage of them were from the perimeter. They also gave up more scoring chances than you’d like. Unfortunately, Bennett and Ferland have a history of being even worse together, so you kinda have to pick your poison. In theory, if you still have Jankowski (who has been gently used but has overwhelming results in those softer minutes) running the pivot and put Jagr in some easier minutes, things at the bottom of the roster get shored up in a hurry. That still leaves you with a sub-optimal third line but those are the breaks.