Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
I blame 14-15 season for this. I do think after the trades of Iginla, Bouwmeester, and retirement of Kipper that the plan was to rebuild.
They were bad in 12-13 and they drafted Monahan at 6, bad again in 13-14 and drafted Bennett at 4 and looked poised for another top 5 pick in 2014-2015.
But unexpectedly Gio become a Norris candidate at 30, Brodie and him made an elite top pair, Gaudreau had a 64 point rookie season, Monahan scored 31, Hudler thrived with the two of them, and all of a sudden they won a round in the playoffs.
Sometimes it's forgotten but the Flames still sold on Glencross and Baertschi for picks that deadline and even with the strong year they still were committed in season to a longer build.
But my guess is the ownership mandate changed that offseason - they got the taste of two rounds of playoff revenue and didn't want to give that up again.
Even then though when I look back at it the Flames still had enough top of the draft talent in their lineup that constituted a "re-build". In the end they did have a top 5 pick from that 2015 draft in Hanifin on the roster.
Lindholm: 2013 - 5
Monahan: 2013 - 6
Bennett: 2014 - 4
Hanifin: 2015 - 5
Tkachuk: 2016 - 6
Plus Gaudreau, Andersson, Kylington, Mangiapane as drafted pieces that over performed their draft slot. Unfortunately Adam Fox should have been part of this too.
In some ways the Flames issue has been we haven't been mismanaged bad enough - it takes real skill to suck bad enough to get top 3 picks.
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Yeah, this really the difference.
2013: Instead of Monahan if we draft MacKinnon or Barkov - how much better are we?
2014: Ekblad or Draisaitl rather than Bennett - how much better are?
2015: We can have the Hamilton argument just given the timing. Patience? We likely don't make that trade. Who knows how that changes stuff.
2016: Matthews or Laine Vs. Tkachuk? We did good based on position, but also ended up with a player who bailed on the org.
That degree of "bad" that we were close to but just missed out on hurt us for sure.