Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
I also think that, moving forward, the Flames become more 'ruthless'. This isn't an attractive UFA destination - not until they go on a couple of deep playoff runs anyway, something that they haven't done since '04. So throw that out of the water. The mandate was to pay guys fairly on their deals. The UFA market has generally been awful for the Flames. So, be ruthless. "Sell" more often. When you have a piss poor season between good seasons, sell some players. Give yourself some cap hit, bottom out a little deeper and get a better pick. Take it as "Not our year", and regroup for next year.
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I certainly don't disagree that this team has been shy of rebuilding......too shy, so that's not my point when I say what I'm about to say. And I also think that this team hit a cross roads when both Johnny and Tkachuk wanted out 2 seasons ago (and maybe even before that when Mony injuries prevented him from being the player he was) - they chose reload vs. rebuild. A full season and a month removed from that decision, and it certainly looks and feels like it was definitely the wrong one.
But I think what you are preaching about ruthlessness between seasons isn't the right approach either. Building a winner, and more importantly, giving that winner time to find it's way is important. The path to success for MOST teams is far from linear. You need to have some belief in your group, and let them grow. If I think about the version of the Flames that was intact for the 5 years prior to last years offseason, it was driven by: Monahan, Johnny, Tkachuk, Lindholm - with change ups on the back end.
That group had massive ups and downs in regular seasons, and little playoff success. But I think it would be fair to suggest, that giving that group time to try and pull it off, with tweaks to the roster vs. burning it down was the right move. Frustrating for fans to see the swings, but they were showing signs that they COULD potentially get things done. Its so easy to say what ifs, but I do wonder how much more success they would have had if one of these two things were true - Mony stayed healthy, or Bennett ended up closer to a top 6 forward with us (not wanting to debate why he didn't). My point isn't to say they were unlucky, they got lots of luck too that helped them have whatever success they had, my point is the difference between them doing something special and what they did accomplish (which amounts to not much of anything) is razor thin.
Being too ruthless every year, will undoubtedly result in a never ending cycle of rebuild and no success. Building a team is very hard, and on some level, you have to take your shot with the group you have after you've invested in growing from the ground up the way the Flames did with that group post 2014.
All that said, it sure does feel like it's time to start the growth process again for sure.