Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Yes, it takes time for a young team to develop. But Treliving sure hasn't been acting like the GM of a young, developing team lately. Do the managers of young, developing teams who aren't yet established playoff teams trade away 3 x 3rds, 4 x 2nds, and a 1st round pick in the space of 18 months? Those are the moves of an established playoff team desperate to make the push to contender, not a young, mediocre team trying to become a playoff team.
Treliving has gambled by trading away a lot of picks in order to speed up the rebuild. If it doesn't work, and this remains a mediocre team, there will be a real price to pay down the line. People can fool themselves by pointing to the odds of any given pick turning into an NHL difference-maker, but that wealth of picks represents a major part of the Flames' future intake of young prospects. This will be a worse team 4-7 years from now without them.
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I can't say I agree with a lot of this. Yes a big price was paid in order to accelerate the rebuild. But you make it sound like it was a bunch of age 30+ veterans that the team is counting on to push the team forward. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Hamilton was all of 21 when he was traded here. Hamonic 26. You also might recall that the biggest need in the summer of 2015 wasn't depth at C, or on the wing or even goaltending. It was to have an upward trending, young, puck-moving RHD that the team could build around and become a core piece. Hamilton fit that description better than almost all other players in his age group in the entire league. A 1st and two 2nds (2nds that were acquired by trading away pending UFA's) for a young 21 year old core piece that was EXACTLY what the Flames needed. Usually you get franchise D via the draft, not trades. When a rare opportunity like that comes around, IMO you have to take it. I don't think we'll see another trade like the Hamilton one for a while (a top pairing D for a mid 1st and couple second rounders). A GM should be fired for NOT making that trade when it's available to them. Especially given that the universal consensus by not only CP but the entire hockey world was that it was a fleecing by the Flames. If the Flames hadn't made that trade, we would all still be wishing this very day for a future franchise D, as no current D in our pipeline would have plugged that hole.
Those are precisely the kind of trades young, mediocre teams trying to become a playoff team try to make.
As for Hamonic, the jury is still out on him. He has shown in the past to be able to anchor a pairing and play at a high level. Things like adapting to a new system and new partners, after 7+ years with the team that drafted him, are very much a real thing. I'm more than willing to be patient with him before I start making claims like the Flames would be a worse team down the road because they don't have those draft picks. Lest we forget how much crow the Hamilton-haters ingested recently.