Just a few of things jump out at me from what Brent said:
Regarding the 'we don't have enough young guys' to rebuild - I can somewhat agree in theory. You probably want to feel a bit more comfortable having a bit deeper of a prospect pool to start with - not necessarily NHL-ready bluechippers, but just a deeper pool where you can expect to get support players jumping up and helping the rebuild a little. Still, it doesn't make too much sense to postpone a rebuild when a rebuild gives you exactly that. However, with that being said, this was truly the best time to start the rebuild, no? I wouldn't have wanted to rebuild during the Hall, RNH and Yak years. 2013 and 2015 are by far superior draft years for this. Lucked out, or maybe that was encouraged by the scouting side of things? Either way, I think it ended up being good. Sure, it delayed things for a couple of years, but I always feel the most important thing is to put together a championship caliber team. I don't know about everyone else here, but I prefer this group of young guys than the past groups that Edmonton drafted in. I think most will agree with me on that perspective at least.
The "Giordano is our leader" - no big surprise that Sutter would say that. I am sure he was definitely one of the leaders in the room, but from his perspective, I am sure Giordano was Brent's leaders. I think the Flames would try and buy-into Sutter's system, but it just wasn't effective. From memory, it seems that their little 'pushes' often came about from outside the system where they were allowed to be creative. The mantra that "this team is not good enough to score off the rush" - while this was partly true, being one (if not THE) smallest and oldest teams in the NHL made it pretty obvious that they couldn't score off the cycle either. For 3 years however, that was the game plan. Sutter said in the interview himself - this team was probably good enough to finish in 8th place in the west, but just didn't get it done. If the group is good enough, then it is a coaching concern at that point. I think the forwards who had to utilize Brent's system had a tough time doing so (obviously), and it just fell apart (IMO - not that it is a fact, just what I am inferring from what I saw out there obviously).
The comments weren't that bad. I listened to the interview, and thought his comments weren't that bad really. Just a little bit of insight, but I don't think it is anything new. We knew that Brent and Iginla weren't on the same page already. Of course he isn't going to praise him. Ask his teammates, and you will probably get a different answer. He didn't really throw anyone under the bus I thought, and his complimenting of Giordano was just that, not a big swipe at Iginla I thought.
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