Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina
My concern, on paper, is that the team lacks truly elite players. That if you match up our best v. other team's best - on many nights they have the better best players.
I think the exception now being in goal, where on most nights the Flames will have the better guy between the pipes.
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As I said before more sobering is the fact that there's no elite players on the horizon. The 2018 season was probably the pinnacle for this group. I feel this team is close to going back to that perpetual state of mediocrity they did last decade for years trying to shuffle the deck chairs around a core of Iginla and a bunch of non-elite players. The organization can drag out a mediocre team for a few more years battling for that last playoff spot or go back to the drawing board and start over. Ideally that would be sooner than later as the trajectory is looking like they will be opening a new arena when the team will be on a steep decline. It may be best to start now that they don't have to worry about selling out an arena. As bad as Ottawa has played this season it's perfect for them as they don't have to worry about the economics of an empty arena. They will be better incrementally every year and that will help once arenas are back to capacity.