Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
Pointing to Wotherspoon as a failure of development doesn't make a lot of sense to me. You may seen him as a descent 5-6 to start, but I can't imagine his potential is higher than that at best. This is a prototypical tweener who might find himself a little career bouncing around teams on the bottom pairing, but that seems generous.
There is no question Calgary is seriously lacking homegrown talent compared to most contending teams. That alone has to make you question how far you can go. But I don't think it's primarily a development issue. Our drafting has been fairly awful for a fairly long time.
It's not that we have trouble graduating guys, it's that we have a horrible selection of whom to graduate (guys who aren't good or guys who really need to play more than 7th D/extra forward)
We lose a bit of dead weight over the summer and I fully expect Kulak, Hathaway, and possibly Jankowski to be on the team next year. Add Gillies and one of Kylington/Andersson/Fox/Poirier next year or the year after as well and things don't look so drab.
TL;DR Wotherspoon can't stick because he sucks.
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If the Flames spend this off season doing things like signing Mason Raymond's and Nik Grossman's, then yes, I would have to agree that they can't develop well. They said from the start they wanted a push from the bottom, but in all fairness to the guys, they need to have legitimate spots open.
There's no question the Flames have had lousy drafting for many years, especially in the top 6 forward position, but they've managed to find some diamonds with Ferland, Gaudreau, Mangiapane, and maybe Jankowski.
Where the Flames have only been good at scouting and developing is with bottom 6 forwards (ie, Bouma, Hathaway, Byron, Chiasson).
They really needed Jankowski, Klimchuck, Poirer, Granlund/Shinkaruk, Baertschi and the Hunter Smith pick to be the top 6 guys. Instead it's possible Mangiapane and Ferland could be closer to those guys at top 6 duty.