Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee
The Flames should have way more faith in their amateur scouting than they’ve strategically leveraged organizationally up to this point. Like, Wranglers are one of the best teams. All the kids coming in can compete, or seem to be able to. Lots of our picks have turned out well, or seem to. I don’t remember the Flames of the 90s or early 00’s having the best draft pick luck, but over the last 5-6 years it’s gotten way better. So, build this team through the draft and leverage our assets today to load up on as many picks as possible. You will find the next star player or players this way.
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In the 1990s, the Flames had this idiotic idea that if they drafted mostly WHL players, they would be guaranteed to get guys who would sign with the team and maybe even give hometown discounts. All they accomplished was to lose out on drafting better players from other leagues, and they certainly didn't get the discounts.
When Sutter came in as GM, he started the team on the road to having a proper development system (they didn't even have their own AHL affiliate at the start) and an adequate scouting staff to cover all the important talent sources. But it took a lot of years for that to develop, and it didn't really pay off until after he was gone.
You get a lot better luck with picks once you have scouts who know what they're doing and coaches who know how to develop them.