Here are my thoughts on rebuilding.
A successful rebuild is just as hard to pull off a winning a Stanley Cup. If it were easy, everyone would do it. You'd see a very clear delineation of teams in the league: those who are competing for a cup, and those who are rebuilding. Instead, what you see is about 5-7 teams going all in, 4-5 teams blatantly tanking, and about 20 teams in "try to get in the playoffs and see what happens" territory.
The idea that we'll trade our prime assets in Lindholm, Hanifin, Backlund and Toffoli and draft 3 or 4 times in the first round in a deep draft is and has always been wishful thinking. On top of that, even if we did draft 3 or 4 times this draft, the hope that all of them will turn out to be impact players 3-4 years down the road is even more wishful thinking. Look at the Monahan draft as the perfect example that hits close to home, with us missing on both Poirier and Klimchuk (and having to dump Monahan at age 27).
What I find hilarious is that the Toffoli trade probably takes us closer to a true rebuild just because the return was pretty bad and our team will be a lot worse next year. And then I read some comments in that thread about people not following the Flames because they're going to suck. It's like "Rebuild! Rebuild!" "Wait no, not like that!"
|