I think when Burke got hired his vision of a fast, heavy team that can dictate play has been a ground up construction process. The leftovers of the previous regime (Gio, Backs, Stajan, Brodie, Bouma) and inherited building blocks (Monahan, Gaudreau, Ferland) have been augmented with Tre's tireless general management and shrewd acquisitions. The Hartley run showed the core had serious potential, but were still very green with lots of holes. I'm a total Flames homer optimist and think Tre's done such a good job laying the groundwork for a sustainable cap structure that the Flames could follow a Chicago template where they have to sell high on up and coming legit NHL'ers to constantly make room for cheap newbies to compliment the elite paid core that keeps Year to year performance consistently high. Ferland strikes me as a prime candidate to lose for a high draft pick to avoid a long term expensive commitment and keep future cupboards full. Chicago fans must be numb to the loss of exciting complimentary players, but love that they've been a legit contender for a long stretch now. I think big pieces (ie: Gaudreau) could be shuffled in the future and the Flames have the depth in the system to maintain their upwards trajectory. This year I'm excited because it's the first time they're playing the Burke vision of fast, heavy hockey while dictating play with success. GG has them playing a time tested safe formula with enough modern tweaks that they're exploiting some form of league groupthink. I think if the Flames lose in a 7 game war in the Conference Finals my wildest 2017 expectations would be satisfied and would reinforce my intuition that the best is still yet to come.
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