Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan
This revisionist history saying that the Flames were strong on defense before acquiring Hamonic is driving me nuts. Re-signing Stone was not anywhere close to a sure thing. The Flames had this as their top 6 on the depth chart before that trade:
Giordano-Hamilton
Brodie-Bartkowski
Kulak-Wotherspoon
On what planet would you all have been satisfied with that as your defense to start the year? There was a major hole that needed filling, and Treliving filled it, pretty well actually. Bartkowski was horrible, Wotherspoon is a career AHLer, and Kulak was really inconsistent.
Andersson and Kylington were both at least a full year in the minors away from possibly having an NHL job, Kylington especially. Fox was at least a year or two away.
The trade happened before the draft, so we didn't even have Valimaki in the fold yet.
The Stone signing happened a couple of weeks later to help round out the defense until the kids were ready.
The need was real. We've been fortunate to see such good progress from all of Andersson, Kylington, Fox, and Valimaki, but it would be foolish to think that all of those prospects would all make such steady progress. 1 year later, we now have the depth to be able to trade a defenseman away for a forward, but let's not pretend we had that same perspective on our organizational depth heading into last off-season.
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Agreed to a point (I think your depth chart is way off).
At the same time though, Treliving very clearly misread his roster and more importantly - his coach. You don't trade a 1st and two 2nd round picks for a 2nd pairing defenceman unless you think you're close - Tree thought they were close, he was wrong.
I like Hamonic, and it's cool he's a Flame. He's the type of player I want on this team - but I still hate that trade. The team just wasn't in a place to spending those type of assets for that roster spot, and the move reeks of impatience.
It's a sunk cost now though, so you move forward. This is a very difficult summer for Treliving as he sent a pretty clear message to the fan base last year when he spent those assets. He said "we're going for it", and they fell on their face, and now he has to improve his roster. People aren't going to be happy if he simply shuffles deck chairs on the Titanic.