Quote:
Originally Posted by Infinit47
There is a great example of how hard winning is about 3 hours north. Gifted a generational talent, three other first overalls and multiple other top 10 picks. All that and they are still mediocre.
Winning requires lots of smarts and a big dose of luck (injuries, late picks hitting). The Oilers have had all the luck, but not much going on in the smarts department. The Flames have done okay (not great) with smarts, but haven't had Oilers type luck.
Regardless I have a hard time believing either ownership group wants anything less than to win.
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I posted this in the Edmonton No Good topic earlier this week, but it fits here too.
The article compared the Oilers build to the Bolts and how the Oilers haven't had the same success with most areas.
Calgary's fit Tampa's more closely, but with one huge caveat ... less bang for buck from their first round picks.
Digging in Backlund was a great pick for where he fell in the first round that year. Jankowski is at least a player, not terrible for later in the first round.
Tkachuk clearly the best first round pick in a long long time.
Issue one has been the impact from first round picks in the top ten. Nothing wrong with Monahan as a draft pick, he was the consensus guy in the draft at that point (and they ended up with the other guy on the board in a trade). But he hasn't turned into an elite play driving star.
Bennett is middle six to bottom six and a whiff, but not one from choosing the wrong player.
Bottom line Calgary hasn't gotten enough bang from their top ten buck.
Then issue two is UFA signings that is masked in this summary as Neal and Brouwer took away a lot of cap space and hurt them badly.
But they've done well in the trade and 2-7 rounds of the draft.
If one of Monahan or Bennett turned into true elite play driving centers they just don't have the issues of the day (clearly everyone knows this)