You need homegrown superstars to win the cup. Vegas is the only exception to the rule (St.L I could argue is another outlier but they had a homegrown goalie stand on their head)
You (usually) only get a homegrown superstar with a top (2) pick. (unless you live in Vegas or Florida or NY and one demands a trade to you! Good luck with that Calgary)
So we can properly tank for a good/better chance at this superstar or hope we find the next late first, 2nd rounder superstar, which is about a 1% chance every draft historically.
The JG era Flames actually hit on the hardest part - Finding a late round star/superstar AND hitting a superstar at pick 6. The odds of finding those 2 players in those spots was 11.5% - 4.9% for MT and 0.6-0.3% for JG Depending if you think they end with 750 or 1000 career points.
You could argue they acquired a star in Lindholm (Lindholm is fine as 5/6th best player) in a trade, and even argue Hanifin fits the star category (I'm not a fan, but I can buy the argument)
The problem? We didn't have the top 2 drafted superstar to augment all these really smart/talented/lucky parts.
All the Stanley Cup winning teams find the extra players outside of the top 2 picks. Thats why they don't end up as the Buffalo's . However, they ALSO have those key foundation guys
The Flames may have found one in Wolf. They may/hope they get another one out of the existing prospects. And eventually they should/may acquire one or two stars in trades/UFA
They will still be missing the superstar(s) to augment them.
I would argue even Carolina and Dallas have this same problem. People love to point to Dallas but to me they are missing the true superstar on their roster, and its very hard to get one you don't develop because they don't become available, and the Kucherov's of the league come around once or twice every decade in the 2nd round.
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