Quote:
Originally Posted by OptimalTates
They traded or let veterans walk like Jagr, Kovalev, Lang, Straka, Hrdina, Kasparaitis, while also not replacing Lemieux and Stevens when they retired. It's absurd to say they replaced those veterans with equivalent players. Why they did it was budget reasons, but the team was in the playoffs in 2001. They let everyone go, completely bottomed out for 2 years, (2002-2003, 2003-2004) which resulted in Fleury, Malkin and Crosby, then once they had those players already in the system they acquired the veterans you're talking about. Compare the 2001 playoff team to the Crosby team. It's a completely different team.
If the Flames were to draft Bedard this year, and get the 1st overall next season, I think everyone would be fine to see them go after veterans and UFAs in 2024 off-season. But to get those picks (outside of winning the lottery), you need to be prepared to bottom out. Rebuild.
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They let everyone go, but it wasn’t to rebuild. I agree this was an example of an accidental rebuild that was successful.
But there’s a cap floor now. You can’t trade a vet for Fata six times and be legit.
Plus there’s a lottery. And other bad teams. You can tank all you want and miss the top picks.