[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

Can we also stop the "You win through the draft, look at Colorado and Tampa" statements as if these two team figured out a drafting formula the Flames could emulate.

They drafted elite talent in the top of the draft because they finished at the bottom of the league. They weren't picking in the bottom half of the first when they acquired their elite talent

TB Drafted Stamkos 1st, and Hedman 2nd overall. (They missed on Connolly 6th and Druin 3rd) . Vasilevsky at 19th in 2012 was the one late first they hit on

Colorado drafted McKinnon 1st, Landeskog 2nd, Rantanen 10th, and Makar 4th. Also throw in Byram at 4th overall. Since drafting McKinnon they have 5 first round picks in the top 10

While it is accurate to say these teams "Built through the draft" the reality is they all had multiple top 5 picks, and 5 top 10 picks over a decade, including top 2 picks multiple times.

The Flames "Problem" (If you can call it that) is that we never were terrible. It's not trading late firsts.

Drafting mid/late in the first round did not lead these 2 teams to success.

The point is, 2023 is expected to be a deep draft, and even when picking in the 16-20 range, you still have a decent shot at getting a very good player.

It's worth mentioning that the Flames did draft Benny and Chucky with early firsts, and drafted one of the best forwards in franchise history with a 4th rounder. So to say that the Flames never sucked hard enough to draft high-end talent is somewhat inaccurate.

Drafts are somewhat unpredictable, even at the best of times. Even if you have the best scouting staff, you can take a player that won't amount to anything while passing on a player who goes on to be a superstar in the league. It happens to all teams from time to time. But the first round is more likely to contain future stars than any other round, and having more picks is better than having fewer.

They just hard-pivoted away from homegrown talent to a group of freshly helicoptered in talent grown elsewhere.

Because 2 homegrown high-end talents decided to leave; Tre & his team salvaged what was a very difficult situaiton and kept the team competitive. It's not like the Flames moved out homegrown talents who wanted to stay.

Originally Posted by ComixZone

Go all in. Spend the living hell out of the future - because ultimately it will force this team to bottom out given the ages at the top of their forward group. There is a reckoning coming to the roster, either realize it harshly and then improve or continue to just hedge and maintain mediocrity. They should have rebuilt after Gaudreau and Tkachuk left, but they didn’t - so now what to do? Accept the bubble position where we’ll sit around 8th in the West for the next few years before falling out and still believing they can make it - or go hard at it right now, and then if you fail make a hard direction change out of necessity.

Shoot your shot. Once the chamber is empty, rebuild through the top of the draft.

Cool. So when the team hits the wall and sucks for a decade, good luck getting an arena deal done amid slumping attendance numbers.