In The Athletic yesterday, Scott Wheeler pointed out, in passing, that "trading high picks is amongst the biggest factors in preventing good teams from staying good and becoming dynasties, and bad teams from climbing out of mediocrity."
Currently, I think the Flames are a bad team trying to climb out of mediocrity and are without their 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th round picks this year and 2nd and 6th round pick next year. If Scott Wheeler's words are true and I think they are, then this is already a bad situation. But if they start trading more of their best prospects for veteran players that will potentially help them win now when they were not even a playoff team last year, I think it will become an awful situation.
Therefore, I am absolutely against trading Parsons, Gillies, Valimaki, Dube, Phillips, Andersson, Kylington, or Mangiapane. You could say that many of these players play the same position and the Flames don't need duplicates but it is highly improbable all those players succeed. The Flames prospect pool is going to take a serious hit over the next few years. Let's not damage it further.
I think the Flames should trade Stone and consider trading Brodie and Bennett depending on the return, especially for picks and, even better, good prospects and, best of all, fast and skilled RW/C. I think the Flames will struggle to meet their needs at RW and C by trading those assets because they are all low-value assets currently. Therefore, I think the Flames should do the following this offseason:
- trade Stone for picks and forward prospects and consider trading Brodie and Bennett for picks and forward prospects depending on the returns AND/OR
- shop in the FA bargain bin for RWs and/or Cs because shopping on July 1 may lead to massive overpayments based on Treliving's history then trade them for picks and forward prospects if we're not in the playoffs at the deadline AND/OR
- use their cap space to package taking on a bad contract with Stone, Brodie, and Bennett to get a truly helpful RW and/or C.
My favorite option is a combination of 1 and 2.
-I could see trading Stone for a 3rd/4th, trading Bennett for a 3rd (I'd rather just keep him), and trading Brodie for a 1st plus a prospect, and
-realistically signing 1. Perron, 2. Vanek, 3. Nash, 4. Bozak or 5. Grabner or
-improbably signing 1. Tavares, 2. Stastny, 3. Kovalchuk, 4. Neal or 5. Thornton if possible (I doubt it).
With the FA, I think it just depends on price and availability. I don't think Calgary is an attractive destination. It's not because Calgary is not a great city. It is allegedly one of the top 5 cities to live in in the world. It's the tax situation.