Quote:
Originally Posted by Ashasx
I would hope the Flames see one or two seasons where teams like the Panthers this year or Montreal in 2021 as once in a generation runs that cannot be relied on to be repeated. But I agree, I expect the Flames (Edwards) to instead use this as empirical evidence to re-affirm their approach to building a hockey team.
It makes sense to me why this team has wild swings from season to season. Whether its roster composition, coaching, development - this organization has never taken a long-term approach to winning and I don't think it will start now.
And yes, there are fears you get stuck into loop of darkness like Edmonton and Buffalo - but I also think few people would argue that these organizations have had the absolute worst management groups in the sport.
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I think to Jiri's point, you've made the assumption the owners can (or are willing) to afford the year over year hit to earnings (and they are massive) missing the playoffs, and more importantly, having a rebuilding team would have. It's one thing to say over the course of 10 years, strategy X works out better. But if you can't afford the first 5 years, that strategy isn't available to you.
Each year that goes by, it looks to me like the empirical evidence suggests, the just get in strategy is actually quite effective. Florida barely made it this year. Vegas missed it last year. Dallas has been on multiple long runs in the past 5 years (and poor performances) and so on. The swings from darling to dog house for franchises in this league, literally change from one year to the next.
The cap era has brought on pretty good parity, meaning the difference between champ and out of the playoffs it truly the slimmest of margins right now. It's easy to disqualify the info that doesn't back up our position with quips like: Montreal's run and Florida's run were once in a generational, and Edmonton and Buffalo are the worst managed teams. But that's not looking at the empirical evidence, that's seeing what you want to see to validate a hypothesis. I'm guessing the empirical evidence would actually prove, both rebuilds and consistent re-tools (keep trying just to get in) have likely rendered pretty similar results, especially in the last decade, but maybe not?