Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
The lack of a fourth line is down to draft busts of Poirier, Klimchuk, and Hunter Smith, the trades/waiver loss of Granlund and Byron, and the trading away of multiple 1st and 2nd round picks. Most teams have a regular pipeline of prospects into their 4th line. The Flames have historically struggled to achieve this fundamental building-stone of an NHL roster, and instead fill their depth positions with expensive UFAs and trades for low-ceiling grinders.
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Organizationally the flames have never been great at developing talent from within. I don’t know why but it often feels like we either give up too early, allow a coach to decide on a young players usage and then give up or just fail to develop impact players at the ahl level. It seems like a foregone conclusion that andersson valimaki and fox all start in the ahl next season, and kulak has only stuck up here full time because bartkowski is terrible but that wasn’t until the coach tried to use him as often as possible until kulak beat him out.
I’m all for young players earning their shot at playing with the big club but I just don’t see us doing things even remotely similar to Boston (mcavoy up killing it, also a relatively young d core), Dallas with klingberg, St. Louis with pareyko a couple years ago, tampa withyheir forwards, etc...
I know the response to this will be “look at gaudreau, Monahan and tkachuk” and I would argue that they all developed on their own outside of the ahl and transcend that process.
The fact that janko looks good so far is maybe a testament to the fact that we are changing that lack of development a little bit but I am still skeptical.