Quote:
Originally Posted by TOfan
None of this is assured. There’s no more reason to believe that if Treliving signed Gaudreau in ‘21, or was signing the teams own free agents to more lucrative deals that the Flames would have or would be better off today. The Oilers did exactly that with Hall, Eberle, RNH etc. should Treliving have handed Sam Bennett 6x6?
Treliving deserves his fair share of responsibility but it’s far more likely the reason the Flames are in the gutter today, as you put it, is because they’re a smallish Canadian market in the middle of nowhere with an aged arena. The Flames had and will continue to have an uphill battle to keep and attract high end talent.
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I’d rather gamble on a guy I know over a guy I don’t know especially when you take into Treliving’s checkered history of overpaying for guys who he’s never seen play in a Flames sweater.
When did Sam Bennett ever show he was a 6 x 6 guy? He wasn’t even close to that kind of money whereas Gaudreau had led his team in scoring 5 out of his past 6 seasons and was top 10 in cumulative points among all NHLers in that time frame. That’s pretty damn elite IMO.
Also, how does being a small market team with a crappy arena equate to being bad? Winnipeg is an even smaller market team and they’re one of the best teams in the league right now. They’ve got a good GM over there who’s patient and drafts well and more importantly, hasn’t regularly handcuffed his team with poor cap decisions.
The Jets for instance certainly would never trade for a Travis Hamonic or Brian Elliott only for it to turn into a Noah Dobson and a Jordan Kyrou. How much better would the Flames have been or would be today if they had kept the picks and drafted these guys instead or at the very least, targeted some more impactful players who weren’t so incredibly average.