While we are discussing Feaster's tenure, there was a bit of 'sitting on his hands' going on.
You can argue that trading away Regehr was changing the core, and trying to sign Richards was trying to make this team better. You can talk about the RoR fiasco. Those were the biggest moves he made in trying to change this team.
The Cammalleri trade was just as much about getting rid of Bourque as it was about acquiring Cammalleri.
What was going on in those years from Sutter's dismissal until the rebuild?
I said about 1 year after Sutter was dismissed that the rebuild has started. I was only half-right.. or half-wrong, depending on how you look at it. Feaster stopped exchanging futures for the 'win-now' - something teams on the rise but who aren't 'ready' yet do, or teams that are in rebuilds. The Flames were on a slow decline.
They had a coach who in 3 years couldn't get the team to buy into his 'system', and constantly complained about it. What did Feaster do? He neither changed the core, nor did he change the coach.
The team was trending down, and he just stopped making futures for now trades, without a prospect pool with much in the way of help to get the ship righted. It was just sinking and sinking, and Feaster basically held the team in limbo.
Now, don't get me wrong - I am glad that the Feaster didn't make 'win-now' moves. That would probably have been a complete disaster in the long run. In a way, with hindsight anyways, I feel that even though the assets depreciated substantially, the Flames rebuild in 1 very strong draft year (last year), one 'meh' draft year (this year) and hopefully will draft high in what seems to be an exceptional year next year. Better than the few drafts prior to last year (imo).
It just seems like Feaster was 'sitting' on his hands trying to plug holes and do both sides at once. The model was Detroit - but Detroit had talent on both their NHL squad, and in their prospect pool. It is a great model to have, but the result should have been expected.
Feaster didn't decide until it was finally forced on him with the combination of Iginla's contract, boo-birds at the Dome, and the team's record. Up until that point, it was really in limbo. The rebuild crowd was fairly loud here - I was one of the 'suckers' for still believing and hoping. I thought that with proper drafting, the Flames could really be successful without having to undergo a rebuild - but that was proven dead wrong.
It was a good 2 years of staying in limbo under Feaster - though I do have to praise him for adding to the scouting staff and to allow said scouting staff to do their jobs. This is going to pay dividends in the next couple of years.
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