Quote:
Originally Posted by Sylvanfan
Realistically the team is 10 months into the so called rebuild. 1 year ago, they were getting the season started, and the Flames were still publically claiming that they planned to compete for a playoff spot.
A situation like the Flames probably needs a 5-6 year cycle until it may produce a consistent good result. Colorado has had 5 drafts since their first bottom out, and in that time they had 1 playoff appearance, 1 season of sort of being in the race, and 2 others of top 2 picks. Now they may be finally be in that mode where they should have a good competitive team. St.Louis showed a similar trajectory coming out of the lockout getting two top 5 picks a season in the playoffs and come competitive hockey and now are about to put forth a third consecutive season as a top level team. It's likely a similar path back to relevancy for the Flames, although they didn't bottom out to a top 5 pick to start off, but it's likely 3 more drafts added to last year before the team would realistically find it's way back out of NHL obscurity. Really it's going to be 3-4 more years until those California teams show enough decline to let them get back being in the mix.
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however, a generational talent, like McDavid, can accelerate things.