Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
The O'Reilly trade is a weird one to evaluate in retrospect. Of course, it looks like a genius move for St. Louis from here, but through most of the season the deal looked like a serious bust as the Blues scraped the bottom of the Standings for the first several months. A coaching change and a new goaltender completely turned their fortunes around in a way that is difficult to explain because of how much these two changes impacted the entire roster.
It's also why I think it would be a mistake to write off the current Flames roster after a twelve-month period of disappointment which was also tied to a coaching problem.
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That trade looked a win for STL from the minute it happened IMO. And even when the team was struggling in the first half they were still being led in scoring by a rejuvenated ROR who was putting up numbers like he never had before. IIRC he was over a point per game for quite a while.
But yes you''re right, the team didn't see success until they shored up the goaltending and changed coaches.
I also agree that it might be too early to give up on the Flames core, but they need to add some pieces for sure, and they also need to pray Gio's level of play doesn't drop off a cliff.
St. Louis in back to back off seasons added Schenn and ROR. Two genius moves that revamped their center core to cup caliber. I think if the Flames could add one really good C it would make a world of difference. If Treliving had added Schenn and ROR those two years instead of Hamonic and Neal, where would they be now?