[1qqaaz]

I think our AHL teams have been fine at developing forwards.
It's the defense and especially goaltending development that has been abysmal.

Andersson is the first former AHL-product on defense since TJ Brodie. That's nearly a decade of ineptitude.

The number of goalies who played 63 + NHL games and played for Calgary's AHL teams since 1982? Just one: Curtis McElhinney.

That's 25+ draft picks that have amounted to nothing. About a dozen of these goalies were 1st or 2nd round picks. This is over a very long period of time: practically nothing in the organization was consistent for 36 years. 36 years of goalie development failure obviously cannot be placed on one individual.

I think it's been more of a development issue than a drafting issue.
Guys like Mason McDonald (2nd round), Andrei Medvedev (2nd round) and Brent Krahn (1st round) were probably bad draft picks. They didn't make much sense at any point in time.

Other guys looked great after being drafted. They put up fantastic junior numbers, and even won World Junior Championships or NCAA titles.
It was the AHL where their development suddenly halted (Jon Gillies is probably the best example - except for him, you could argue it was an injury).

Some of them did develop in the AHL. It was the NHL in which they could not break in. Ortio and Irving put up fine numbers in the AHL. But they didn't develop into NHL goaltenders. Goalies can have good AHL stats, but the Flames development personnel also has to prepare them to succeed in the NHL.

Overall, I think player and prospect development is the single largest problem with the Flames. But at least they've been a lot better than the Oilers in this regard.