I will say that under Tre, the Flames look to show a pretty big improvement for first round draft choices. All of Bennett, Valimaki and Tkachuk are NHL players worth discussing, and the others still have promise
Flames have been pretty awful at first round picks historically. The poster that noted there was one hit between 2004 and 2012 was correct with Backlund. Sutter, though not good on the whole at drafting, also drafted Phaneuf in 2003 for what it is worth.
Prior to 2003, taking us back to Kidd in 1990, it’s as ugly as can be
Eric Nystrom, Kobasew, Krahn, Saprykin, Fata, Tkaczuk, Morris, Gauthier, Dingman, Jesper Mattson, Cory Stillman, Niklas Sundblad and Trevor Kidd
Plenty more duds and even the guys that became NHLers were generally pretty unspectacular, except Stillman with his back to back Cups and Morris who had a long career.
Nystrom, Kobasew, Gauthier and Kidd all had ~10 ish year careers, Saprykin a bit less if I recall, but these are not noteworthy players if you’re not a Flames fan
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