[GranteedEV]

Pretty much every successful (conference finals+) team in the last decade had some key rebuild years where they built an elite core (nothing like our half-assed couple of years near the bottom that still don't qualify as bottoming out). Of course there are exceptions who simply hit jackpots in the draft (Boston's core of Bergeron, Lucic and Marchand come to mind) but technically, even the 2011 Bruins had a 2nd overall pick on their roster in Seguin, which I'm sure revitilized their confidence levels.

Do I believe the Flames have a rotten core the way some here do? No, I certainly do not. I actually believe in this core's character, commitment, and competitiveness.

I do think we have a deficit in talent at the two most important skater positions (#1 defenseman or lack thereof / #1 centre or lack thereof), but overall this is what should be a deep roster.

Now, teams sometimes just have bad years. Colorado finished last in the league in 2017, and by a large margin at that. This was a Colorado team that had the same core it has right now, even the same coach, but they finished dead ####ing last. The result was that Sakic not only added an elite talent in Cale Makar via the draft, but replaced some underwhelming periphery players with players better suited either to the style Bednar wanted to implement, or to the style Sakic believed was successful in the league.

What I do know is this - this team has had success playing a certain style which to some extent or another was implemented by both Bob Hartley and Bill Peters. We also know it hasn't had so much success playing what Glen Gulutzan dubbed "50/50 hockey" and what Geoff Ward has referred to as "better defensive hockey".

Personally, until we get back to playing that style, I don't believe we can really even evaluate the players on the roster. It's a style teams can certainly win with (and have won with) but it's not the style Treliving appears to favour. So there's a disconnect between the style that makes this a good team, and the style Treliving believes makes a good team.

I'd rather bring in a coach who coaches the style this team has success with, than bring in 20 other players who play the style this coach/management expects to have success with.