Gaudreau and Monahan by themselves, might not be the long term solution to the Flames making a deep playoff run, but they definitely aren't the problem. Their contracts alone dictate that they won't ever be traded barring an absurd overpayment.
We also just witnessed first hand what a bonafide 1st line center can do. After seeing Mackinnon's performance, we literally don't have any center on this team that can either shut someone like him down in a playoff series (no offense to Backs) or is offensive enough to go shot for shot with him. IMO, long term solution for the Flames is to add center depth to have a 1-2 combo down the middle and push down Backs to the 3rd line.
If we keep signing/trading for mediocre middle of the road players, those are the kind of results we'll get. People may scoff at the price of signing a high level player or trading for one but that's what needs to be done for this team to get over the hump.
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