It's so frustrating to hear how people say that the oilers, on paper, should be better than the flames. Why? I'll take the flames defence over the oilers defence any day. And I'll take the flames forward depth over the oilers "young guns" and their complete lack of depth.
It's the assumption that all their years of sucking will lead to these kids fulfilling their potential... That arrogant attitude that it's inevitable that the oilers are going to be a powerhouse. At this point, I see it more likely the oilers become like Columbus was with Rick Nash... No matter how many high draft picks they had, they just had one star who under achieved and ended up wanting out. I imagine yakupov wants out already. I could see hall wanting out in about 2 years after they keep finishing bottom five with no improvement. The more I see RNH , the more I think his ceiling will be closer to that of Derek Roy or Thomas Fleishman in their prime.
The flames have been accused in the past for not having a lot of prospect depth... But it's incredible how little prospect depth the oilers have in their system considering how many years they have been loading up draft picks and picking high in the draft. I can only think of klefbom and nurse as guys that they have coming that are projected to be NHLers.
Flames have only been at this "rebuild" thing for not even a year. There are obviously no guarantees but they have a lot more guys who are projected to be NHLers than the oilers do at this point. On top of that, the flames have more legitimate NHLers actually playing on the big club than the oilers do.
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