Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
Gaudreau (8 years), Hanifin (6 years) and Tkachuk (6 years) spent most of their prime playing days in Calgary. The fact that they chose to move on seems like a very short-sighted reason to just avoid American players altogether.
Oh, and Blake Coleman says, "Hi."
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True. Would not want to remove American players from your draft considerations. Want to take best player available. It just sucks cause the flames have been burned by this more than any other Canadian team in recent memory. What it does is cut your competitive window short… that’s what has happened with Gaudreau/Tkachuk/Hanifin and, to some extent, Fox. The flames have a similar experience in this next iteration of the team after the rebuild where they have several American stars players that are core member of the team that sign shorter second contracts that get them to free agency early. If the flames reached their goal of being competitive by 2027, they may only have a 4-5 year window after that to capitalize on keeping all their core pieces in that scenario. All speculation of course and who knows if the flames will have the same struggles with American players in the next version of the flames - especially with the new arena.