Quote:
Originally Posted by manwiches
As much as I and some others want to see a rebuild and a tear down, it won't happen. At the end of the day, it's a business to be run. Which means putting bums in seats, selling merch, selling concession. Putting your B/C squad out, torpedoing your best talent, or bringing on B/C talent, it is hard to imagine that will put bums in the seats (and thus revenue).
Is there a case to be made for early pain for more gain later? Absolutely. But when the Flames are 1 year removed from a dream season, and see 2 of their biggest stars leave, then followed by bringing on some perceived great replacement talent, only for it to fall on it's face.... What do you do? It's not like they have been perennially terrible. It could be viewed as an off year. But now we're talking about our next A level talents seeking other pastures.
I'd hate to be in Conroy's shoes. He's literally in a no-win situation as the commander in chief. But at the same time, he also has to think of the future. What can he do now, to put bums in the seats, yet also build on future.
I think Lindholm is a great player to keep and have for both those accounts. But at what cost (term and AAV)? I don't know the right answer. All i know if that I'll continue to cheer them on.
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To build off this point, we had a fairly unique situation in Gaudreau and Tkachuk wanting to leave. More common than Americans wanting to stay home has always been great players wanting to be on great, stable teams.
Nobody wanted to be on the Oilers even during the first stretch of McDavid. A generational talent couldn't even bring people in because they were a tire fire. When they started to have some success, they started luring better players on better deals. (they're still garbage, but that's a different thing).
It's a bit of a catch-22 because you want to make sure 100% you can afford guys like Coronato, Wolf, or Honzek if/when they pop. But you also need to make sure you're a team they want to play for (especially as a mid/small market team). The cap is always something you can figure out. Vegas just won the cup while being some absurd number over the cap. Boston cleared $6M off the cap for a fat bit of nothing. A lot is going to change 3-6 years from now when (hopefully) the young guys we have now pop and ask for big numbers.
American teams like Buffalo and Columbus are no strangers to losing good players to greener pastures. The value to players in sticking with a competitive team shouldn't be understated, regardless of how much people want to believe one terrible year was the true peak of everyone on this roster.