[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Rebuilds have three elements:

A) Finishing near the bottom of the standings and drafting blue-chip prospects.

B) Trading veterans for picks and prospects to bulk up the prospect pool.

C) Using cap space to get more picks and prospects from contending teams up against the cap.

The Flames look like they’ll be backing into A. However, it will still require a sea change among ownership and management to embrace B and C. Like a lot of teams, it will take sustained losing for the bigwigs to accept the inevitable. Some never do.

Kadri and Huberdeau are untradeable. So they’re out for B).

But we could part with the other pending FAs via trade. Keep the core, hope for a high pick this year. That would go a long way to fulfilling B).

C) will never happen though. With Kadri, Hubes and Marky signed, we won’t be going for a long term rebuild. We’ll have to hope that trading Zad, Lindy, Hannifin and maybe tanev will be enough to get us the draft picks and prospects we need to go a new direction.

Then hope Marky, Hubes and Kadri have enough left in the tank to be complementary pieces around a couple young stars that we selected with those picks. Since we’ll only draft high once, it’ll mean we’ll need some luck drafting a player that outshines their draft position.