Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
I wasn't disputing that the Flames drafting choices and overall asset management between 2000 and 2008 or so weren't horribly flawed. The team was drafting based on what was successful in the clutch and grab era. We put a premium on big country boys. We also traded away far too many draft picks.
My point was that the issue was not with our development system. We simply did not have enough talent in the pool to begin with. This was due to various factors, including: lack of high draft picks; lack of draft picks, in general; drafting too many goalies and defenders; poor European scouting; and universally choosing big bodies over skill.
Given the picks we did make, our success was actually fairly good. The Flames organization went with the safe picks in the 20+ spots, and that was largely what our system produced. We ended up with a bunch of hard working tweener and depth types. Players like Nystrom and Prust were never meant to be first line players, and our system did not stunt their potential, in any way. In fact, they lived up to their potential due to proper development. The issue is their potential was never that high.
I would also argue that it is still too early to call players from the 2009, or even 2008, draft who have not cracked a full time roster spot busts. Specifically I'm thinking about Ortio and Bouma. Both may end up as full time NHLers, thus adding to our total.
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You specifically said "If you look at the probability of success of draft picks chosen 20 or later, the Flames actually do quite well." So I asked you to back that up, and you've yet to document where that is from. I gave you every player that the Flames have ever drafted and developed, and there is only 8 players who the Flames have developed and permanently made the NHL. You can try and say X and Y might, but they are still unknown and for what you said they do not factor in. So, I ask once again where is your original statement from?
8 players from 2001-2009 is horrendous. One NHL player per draft? And of the group only Phaneuf and Brodie are top 4 guys while the rest is pure depth. That's putrid....and since we're dealing with 20+ we can discard Phaneuf and Nystrom.
Drafting and development go hand in hand. Maybe we don't like the guy we pick, because his ceiling is too low or floor too high or whatever but the Flames are from that point onwards responsible for making the right decision for his career(at least from when they sign). Developing prospects is also very much in sync with managing assets.....there is no difference. It's up to the Flames FO to make sure these guys play in the right leagues, focus on the right things, have coaches/trainers in place on their AHL teams that will nurture the talent(huge organizational flaw for the Flames in the past) and break them into the NHL as planned. Instead our prospects were largely raised to be cheap depth replacements and call ups when necessary.
Nystrom doesn't apply, but I can tell you that no GM is hoping for only "depth" when he's picking top 10. You want impact. That's universal and we both know that Nystrom was not drafted so he could hopefully one day be a 3rd line guy. The fact that it took him 5.5 years to become a fixture on our team, and as an energy guy is the definition of BLOWN potential. That's down to development and is in no way a good thing. Those players are a dime a dozen.
I'm not disagreeing that most of these guys didn't have a very high ceiling....just that we were terrible at helping these prospects reach their level, which is why a huge chunk of them are out of the league and never got a sniff.
You can think what you want about Ortio and Bouma. Bouma might stick around as a nice depth guy which is good but it's nothing to suggest the Flames are/were good at developing the guys. Ortio is a very long shot, didn't get invited to camp even with 3 replacement level goalies and we have Broissoit and Gillies who appear to be above him in the prospect depth chart. Either way, none of them apply to your earlier statement.