The more I think of it, the more I am on-board with a tear-down. I think a retool can work - but unless the Flames bring in a really good coach who can work with the existing pieces, it is just going to be more of the same.
I think you make 2 years' worth of trades.
Year 1: Trade Giordano, Gaudreau and Backlund for picks/prospects.
Year 2: Trade Monahan and Tkachuk
Why 2 years? So you don't shoot yourself in the foot with players coming off of ELC's at the same time, and to give development time and opportunity. Either way, if you want to do it all at once, then so be it.
Why are the Flames trading Tkachuk? 9 million dollar qualifying offer, then 1 year to free agency. Sorry, but Flames can't take that risk right now. That's a terrible risk to take that can blow up in their faces. Tkachuk is worth a king's ransom right now, so don't screw this up.
Players to keep:
Bennett, Dube, Mangiapane, Hanifin, Andersson, Kylington, and Lindholm.
This won't be the 'core' IMO, but a really good base to build off of. I don't see a franchise-type in this list - maybe Bennett if he gets it all together with the opportunity that will be afforded to him - jury is out on that, but I think he is just going to be a very good supporting player. Andersson simply doesn't have the skating ability to be a #1 IMO. Hanifin might get there, but I do think that he would have been a lot closer to showing that than he has been so far.
Keep Lindholm. No, I don't think he was awesome, but he is a very strong support player and is signed to a nice long-term deal. You don't want to do what Edmonton and some other flat-out failures have done and put their youth in a position to fail. I think keeping the players above - plus adding a few solid journeymen vets - will allow this prospects to grow in a healthy environment.
I am ready for a rebuild. This team has a penchant for hiring less than adequate coaching staff, so unless that changes soon, a 'retool' will just delay the inevitable and make the Flames bleed assets. They already lost significant assets in Hamonic and Brodie (assuming Brodie leaves, which seems like a certainty, unfortunately).
Stop the bleeding right now and the devaluation of further assets, and sell. The drafting side of things is strong in the organization - arguably the ONLY bright side in the entire organization. Give them more ammunition to assemble the new core that can actually challenge top teams in the league.
Of course you keep all the guys on the farm/system right now, as there will be some moving up to take the vacant spots. There doesn't appear to be any blue-chippers down there - perhaps with the exception of Wolf and Parsons maybe, but there is solid depth players to help this team moving forward, I would say. Lots of depth guys actually, so they should be able to graduate some alongside a new 'core'.
Just do it right and don't further devalue assets. I would love to keep Tkachuk, but IMO, that's just too much risk. I would imagine you can get quite the bidding war between Ottawa and Toronto for him - Toronto definitely needs defensive help, but they also need gritty guys who can both score and defend in their forward ranks as well. Ottawa won't want the brother going to a rival. I don't know.. either way, Tkachuk will return a king's ransom, and the Flames can't afford to try and look for a landing spot in the last year of his contract when everyone is going to start worrying about him being a flight risk.
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