Quote:
Originally Posted by D as in David
Pretty much. Just listen to Zary talking about how Kadri will talk to them throughout a game about different situations and how to play them. In Zary's words "...and then they happen next shift."
Otherwise, young players end up learning, if they learn at all, the hard way.
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The Flames, if they want to be successful, need to rethink how to do a rebuild. You must get assets back for your pending UFAs. Even if you're in a playoff spot. Flames are going to be perpetually at a disadvantage when it comes to UFAs, so need to squeeze out whatever value you can and focus elsewhere.
But further to this, in order to keep a healthy number of vets in your lineup, you need to have a development pipeline where the end goal is an even age distribution of players on your NHL roster. This way you always have three or four 26-27 year olds teaching the 20-25 year olds. If you have a standout player mentor that is 26+, then it is worth keeping them around. But because they're likely going to be expensive, you don't want more than a couple on your roster. In a pinch, acquire a grizzled journeyman with a good head on his shoulders for ~$1M, like a Dave Lowry type. If you're icing a roster with a bunch of these types on your third pairing or fourth line, you're doing it wrong.
The sooner the Flames start thinking this way the sooner they'll start seeing dividends. But it will be a rocky 5-6 years to get there. But once they have their development sorted out they'll in effect be in perpetual rebuild, in that I mean they'll be graduating 3-5 players to the NHL level every season and selling pending UFAs for futures to replenish the development pool.