[Flames_F.T.W]

Originally Posted by New Era

Except we are. Based on some of the ideas floating around we are risking our future and the potential for the team to be anything but NHL fodder.

Let's paint a possible future outcome. Say you do trade for Eichel and it costs you your best prospects and picks. Say you lose Tkachuk and one of Monahan or Lindholm, along with Valimaki, Pelletier or Zary, or both, and then the 1st in this draft? That carves out the best hope in the system on the blueline, a position where we need to backfill Giordano. That also carves out your best prospects up front, where we are pretty thin. You also remove the best pick from a draft cycle where we need that pick to restock. Four players greatly needed to support Eichel are then removed from the system. There is nothing coming to support that supposed superstar you just acquired.

Then you have to look at the rest of the roster. Giordano is pretty much done. Big hole on the blueline. Johnny Hockey is coming up the UFA status. You think he's going to want to hang around this team when there is nothing coming to support the current roster? Nope. I don't care if Eichel is here, Gaudreau is looking elsewhere.

After that, how happy do you think Eichel will be? That leaves a roster of one of Monahan or Lindholm, Mangiapane, Dube, Backlund, and Lucic. Do you think he stands firm and is happy in the hinterlands of the NHL, or do you think he looks at the ####show and immediately demands a trade out, a la Chris Drury? At that point the franchise is majorly ####ed. Nothing on the roster, nothing in the system, and absolutely nothing to look forward to. We're talking expansion team poor.

So yeah, things could be a lot worse, which is why you have to think long term about these types of moves. You always have to hedge your bets should the trade go sideways. Trade for Eichel using assets from your roster, but don't trade your future. Not for a player who you control for only four or five years (depending on health).

All I'm saying is there's an elite, young, #1C available. That's the hardest thing in hockey to find. The vast majority of cup winners have a guy like Eichel. I think we should do whatever it takes to get him. Worry about everything else afterwards. And even if it blows up in our face, at least we tried to break the cycle of perpetual mediocrity by acquiring a guy who could be a franchise C.