Quote:
Originally Posted by Hackey
Because apparently if you just get in anything can happen despite decades long history that shows the best teams always win. Because our top guys who are all having mediocre seasons and have a history of mediocre playoffs are going to have the playoffs of their lives.
In all seriousness I just hope the Flames dont do anything stupid chasing this year. The odds of them being sellers is very slim even though they probably should. All I hope is we dont waste a bunch of assets and then either we have a long run that is a ton of fun or we get punted and make some big off season moves.
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Well the best teams last year in the regular season were CGY and TB and they went nowhere. Who was predicting STL winning the cup again? Seems like a bit of revisionist history going on here.
I think Treliving is smart enough not to waste a lot of significant assets on a rental. He'd rather continue to add pieces that can be part of the longer term solution. Basically Brodie and Hamonic are our rentals. And potentially one of them is re-signed and not lost for nothing depending on cost and term.
I disagree that they should be sellers. You should be sellers in the years where you are trying to accumulate assets to start a rebuild or during a rebuild. We should have been sellers the year Feaster talked about intellectually honesty and did nothing. But now the Flames are asset rich thanks to our rebuild, some good drafting and development. We aren't desperate to trade good players for draft picks in the middle of a playoff race. We're not rebuilding and won't be anytime soon IMO. If the roster needs a shakeup or a bit of a core change it'll happen in the summer.
Overall this is a pretty good team, still fighting for 1st in the division despite a bad start, a forced coaching change, a down year from what had been one of our most dangerous players. I get why people are pessimistic about us going far in the playoffs, I am too. But that doesn't mean you trade a couple of your best defensemen for futures while in the midst of a huge playoff race.
Should be interesting to see what Treliving can manage to add. Gaudreau deserves one last playoff run to prove himself before a decision is made about moving on from him or not. It'll be a big test for guys like Lindholm, Tkachuk, Rittich, Monahan and our young D as well.
Let's not forget that failing in the playoffs can be necessary for learning how to succeed in the playoffs. This is still a relatively young team with rookies who have played very few games (or no games) in the playoffs. The experience of going there and seeing what it takes to win is something I like some are underrating. You don't undercut the chance of getting there by selling a couple of your top 4 dmen for picks, it just doesn't make any sense to me with where the franchise is in its competitive cycle. This team desperately needs more playoff experience. Let's see who steps up in the most important time and who doesn't. That's how you find out who to build around.