Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee
I get that but I have absolutely zero faith in the Flames development. It feels like they could draft the baby of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux and he'd still turn out to be a putz and not a legitimate star NHL player. So what I'm saying is maybe the de-risking makes sense.
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I really understand why you feel this way - the Flames have NOT been a highly regarded drafting and development team since the 80's.
The problem is that it takes a while to develop this program. Darryl Sutter got the ball running years ago when he took over and realized there were only 3 scouts (1 full time, 2 part time I think, right?? Someone want to correct me here?).
Since then, the Flames have added quite a bit to their development and drafting. They have added a LOT of amateur and pro scouts.
How quickly do you see an impact on such a program? Takes a little bit, I would imagine, but at the very least it is something that is improving.
Heck, any poster here who doesn't at least see something positive in drafting and development is completely negative - there simply wasn't a development program in the past, and there were few scouts at all. Just the mere fact that there is now a team of guys for amateur scouting, a team of professional scouts, and also an AHL team that the Flames have control over (finally!) should give you reason for optimism.
One final way to encourage you to be a bit more optimistic about the Flames development program:
Last year there was a large number of injuries. Loads of players got called up from the Heat, and what happened? The team continued playing well and making a 'run' of it. Those weren't highly ranked prospects or blue-chippers (outside of Baertschi anyways). These were low first rounders and under. Look how far Brodie has developed. If anyone claimed 2 years ago that Brodie would be a very good second pairing defencemen this year, he would have been laughed off these forums.
Is it perfect? Heck no. I still think there is lots of room for improvement - and I hope the Flames are always trying to improve these 2 key areas. I am optimistic because at least there is an emphasis on drafting and development on this team - there was no such emphasis years ago. Absolutely none.