[Sylvanfan]

I get the trepidation about going into a rebuild. Teams like Buffalo, New Jersey, and even Detroit seem to be mired into one that's going on for 5 years now, and those teams are no better in the Standings today than they were last years. Even Anaheim, how long are they going to be down for? Once you go that way, you can get stuck there forever. Even McDavid and Dr. Drai have had a miserable time getting Edmonton to mediocre....

Going into the offseason, the Flames were far better positioned to rebuild as contract wise they were pretty open and did not have too many long term commitments. Even Backlund, Gio and Lucic in a rebuild somewhat help the team get to the salary floor and can provide guidance for some young players coming in. But having added a couple of bigger dollar term contracts in Markstrom and Tanev, that makes it a bit trickier. Plus add in a coach who really is not a good fit for a full rebuild.

They likely will make some sort of move in the offseason, but I think they'll try changing out a bigger piece or two of the team and give that a go before they waive the white flag on a rebuild.