Originally Posted by Enoch Root
I was recently debating with an Oiler fan about which team is further along in the rebuild - the 8-year, rebuild 3.0 of the Oilers, or the Flames in year 2 of their rebuild.
One interesting way to look at it is to compare the top 10 young players - not just prospects, but all young players - in a 6 forward, 3 defense, and 1 goalie format. The foundation of a future core, if you will.
Though I was keeping it to 25 and under, I included Perron and Backlund because it seemed appropriate for both teams. Also, they aren't ranked in any kind of best to worst, I simply tried to match roles and skill sets. So my top 10 young players are:
Oilers..........Flames
Hall>Monahan
RNH<Gaudreau
Eberle>Baertschi
Draisaitl<Bennett
Perron=Backlund
Yakupov>Poirier (I love Poirier, but once Yak figures his stuff out he'll put up more points.)
Schultz<<Brodie
Nurse>>Wotherspoon
Morincin ? Sieloff
Brossoit<<Ortio (Ortio had a bad pre-season, but I still think he's miles ahead of Broissoit)
If you look at the forwards closely, it is actually pretty even - there are some advantages for both teams there. Having said that, I like our strength up the middle more, which I think is key.
On D, the Oilers have more upside, but the Flames D can actually play defense. Advantage Oilers for now, but well have to wait and see how everyone develops.
In goal, no contest.
Pretty even overall for the top 10. However, the Flames have a couple other big advantages:
1) leadership and culture. Giordano. That is all.
2) depth. While the first 6 forwards look pretty good for both teams, the Flames can follow that up with a 2nd 6 consisting of: Colborne, Granlund, Bouma, Ferland, Arnold and Jooris. The Oilers have absolutely no answer to that (Joensuu, Lander, Pitlick, ?).
In fact, you can throw out another 6 (Reinhart, Klimchuk, Agostino, Knight, Wolf and Van Brabant) and the Oilers 2nd group wouldn't even compare to that.
So, while the top young Oilers might be further along than the top young Flames, I think the Flames overall are much closer to having enough pieces in place to start moving forward.
The actual ability to move forward is still a little ways away, as Bennett, Gaudreau, Monahan etc are still too young. But the overall blueprint favours the Flames by a fair margin, IMO.
I would not be at all surprised to see the Flames back in the playoffs first.
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