Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
We don't have a lot of young players. We have a fairly normal amount of young players for a top level team. Only one player on our top six and one defensemans is on their ELC, and the rest are all at about their prime. We're also a cap team that's traded away a significant portion of their draft picks to be competitive now.
There's not likely to be the kind of internal growth that's going to push this team to a higher level, and we don't have more resources to spend.
Saying that this team isn't designed to go for it now is to say this team will never go for it.
The only significant upgrade options are
a) completely fleecing another team on a hockey trade
b) superlucky drafting
c) coaching change.
The rest is tinkering and hoping for a good run at the right time. That's not to say that tinkering and patience are terrible options, that's really the basic status of most teams.
But if you don't think that Gulutzan is a top coach, then I think it's fairly obvious we should try to upgrade, because not trying to find the best possible coach for the team would be throwing away a chance to be better.
I think it's fairly obvious Gulutzan is not a top coach on the NHL level. It's debatable whether he's a bad coach (my opinion, he's pretty bad) or a mediocre coach. If he's bad not getting rid of him is just stupid, because bad coaches can have longterm detrimental effects on the development of a team.
If he's a mediocre coach it really only comes down to the question of whether an upgrade can be found.
But really I don't see any reason to let a mediocre coach wait out his contract in the situation we're in, which IMO is clearly a team that's supposed to be going for it.
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We may be average age wise, but not many teams "core" guys are as young as Calgary's.
Look at the Pens...they are almost identical in average age to the Flames, but their Malkin/Crosby duo is a combined 25 seasons into their career.
Monahan/Gaudreau (our equivalents?) are in their combined 10th season.
On defense i would say its about even, but in G we are much older.
Obviously a team like TB has as young/er core guys as Cgy, but beyond them its all about where the age sits among key guys.