Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
Never understood the angst over Kulak either
Under Treliving, the Flames have been in the top half of the league each year, and have had a younger than average team each year, yet every year we get fans saying teh Flames don't give young guys a chance.
Meanwhile, we will have Flame draft picks Monahan, Gaudreau, Tkachuk, Backlund, Bennett, Mangiapane, and Dube up front, along with Andersson, Valimaki and Kylington on the point.
But we totally blew it on Kulak!
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I agree with everything you said here.......
but in addition to that, not being able to find a way to keep Kulak (just as an example), or some other capable bottom pairing guy that you drafted and developed (or are developing) means that you could be giving up futures at the trade deadline to replace the depth you lost on the waiver wire. That's not ideal either.
My concern about the Kylington waiver specifically isn't about "the Flames not giving young guys a chance", but more so that they had other options that didn't require exposing Kylington to waivers at all. I guess Treliving felt the extra $700,000 in cap savings was worth the risk. Turns out his gamble worked. Today he has the cap flexibility and still has the player. Good for him! Kulak is just an example of when it maybe didn't work (although I genuinely felt at the time that the team was trying to give Kulak a chance to play in the NHL).
I don't think I would have taken the risk, personally. But I'm glad Kylington cleared. I suspect Treliving is glad too.