Quote:
Originally Posted by moon
The Wild had a better team and signed two guys light years better than anything available this off-season and they got a whopping 8th spot and 5 play-off games. I think in the past you are cool with that being the goal/accomplishment but building a team through mediocre-bad UFA's is the absolutely worst thing this team could do.
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Yep, I'd argue in the Wild's case though, the UFA signings were a good move by them. They have a very deep prospect pool, but lack guys who will be instant-impact 1st line D-men and forwards, so in signing Parise and Suter they effectively locked themselves into being competitive for a long, long time.
...but that is NOT where the Flames are. We have (based on debatable rankings), somewhere around the 20th best prospect pool in the league - AND, there are no Parise or Suter calibre players available this summer. Even if there were, they wouldn't sign in Calgary because we have absolutely no one in our prospect pool that screams "cup contender" anywhere in the next 3 years.
The best thing for the Flames to be right now is patient. Use every pick we have and maybe even acquire more in the first 3 rounds. Unfortunately for the fans like us, there is absolutely no shred of evidence that this organization has ANY managerial patience whatsoever. We saw it time and time again with Darryl Sutter's regime, and in the short time he's had the reigns, Feaster has shown - at every chance he's had - that he is not a patient manager either. Whether you look at the O'Reilly debacle, or the near-miss Richardsocalypse. Every chance Feaster gets to be
bold and go after the "win-now" movement that appears to come down from the owners, he takes it - no matter how ill-guided and poorly planned it may be.
*edit, although it certainly would seem like the management team is saying the right things after reading what was said at the fan forum last night. I'll be going to the one tonight to see if anything else gets discussed.