[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by howard_the_duck

I suppose you can spin the data any way you’d like to. If you’re against a rebuild, you’re against a rebuild.

I'm not spinning anything. This is basic statistics. Nine-tenths of the champions come from a group that inclludes nine-tenths of the teams… which is exactly what you would expect if the group is chosen completely at random. The data give no reason to reject the null hypothesis.

I’m not sure what else we need to see besides the hand we’ve been dealt. Knowing our odds of keeping our now best player are, at best, similar to the odds of keeping Johnny before today, what is it that you propose the Flames do to give themselves the best chance at winning a Stanley cup? Draft 12th-17th overall year after year (in the years we don’t trade our first) and hope to hit the lottery on late round picks?

Deliberately destroying the team for a hope of maybe picking one player in the top 3 gives you worse odds than that.

The franchise lacks prospect pipeline to bring top level talent into the mix anytime soon. They lack existing elite level talent, young players that project to become elite, and we’re a small market franchise that isn’t attractive to top level free agents unless you were born in these parts or we overpay.

If not now, at what point do you cut your losses and say the way we’ve been doing things in the history of our franchise isn’t working?

There isn't any plan that will work. The Calgary Flames exist to make up the numbers in the league. They're a small-market team on the wrong side of the 49th parallel. There is no recipe that will guarantee the Stanley Cup to any team in any time frame, but the odds against it are longer for the Flames than for almost anyone else.

You can, if you wish, ‘cut your losses’ by changing to a philosophy that will make the team worse than mediocre for years to come. There isn't any philosophy that will overcome the odds and make the team consistently better than average. If there were, every team would adopt it and the advantage woud be gone.