Quote:
Originally Posted by gvitaly
I think we were in a much better spot in 2013. 6th overall + 2 x 1sts. Gaudreau had elite skill and star potential. Ferland, and Bouma were similar to Pospisil, Byron to Pelletier, Gaudreau was better than Zary. Coronato is better than Baertschi, Honzek, and Wolf remain as X factors for this year's rebuild.
Giordano was similar to Weegar, Brodie to Andersson.
The difference was that we didn't have any anchor contracts for 7 years into the future. I'd take a younger Backlund + Hudler + Squid + Wideman + Glencross + Stajan + Hiller over Backlund + Coleman + Kadri + Huberdeau + Markstrom.
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The only anchor in that group is Huberdeau. Backlund and Coleman are both worth their money and provide invaluable mentoring. Kadri is playing great right now, and can be bought out later. No arguing with Huberdeau. We were supposed to be getting good years now and painful years on the back end. It's all been painful so far.
Ferland in 2013, who had yet to play an NHL game, was not on the level of Pospisil. Bouma at that point had 4 points in 43 NHL games.
Byron had 8 points in 34 NHL games, spread over 3 seasons. Size was a much bigger issue in 2013.
These two comparisons aren't even close.
Gaudreau didn't play an NHL game until the very last game of 2013/14. So going into 2013, we still had the undersized college player, who'd been drafted in the 4th round in 2011.
Really the only higher point in 2013, was that Gaudreau was in the system, and he later emerged as a legit top line forward. Right now the Flames have much better depth. Will someone in the system emerge to be on the level of Gaudreau? Who knows, but what the Flames do have is a lot higher quality than what was there in 2013.