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Originally Posted by Hackey
The trade in isolation is fine but I still do worry the Flames are on a path right back to the mushy middle. They still lack high end players. Beyond Wolf and potentially Parekh are there any legit top line or top pairing d-men currently in the system? The prospect base looks quite solid but its one of those situations where you can't count your chickens until they hatch. Anyone who has been a fan of the team for a long time has seen many prospects with a lot of hope and promise that came and went. The Flames are quickly running out of assets to trade as well. If Andersson is signed there isn't much left that will bring back any futures of significance. But I think its still early to say what they truly are. Is this season a one off or will this be the norm moving forward? Next season will likely let us know. But drafting becomes more difficult and takes longer once you're picking outside the top 10. A middle pack team without stars becomes a tougher destination to sell to UFAs and even trade targets with no trades. I think Conroy has done a good job at building depth but finding 2 or 3 legit stars might be a challenge. Maybe he can build a team that has such strong depth it can overcome a lack of stars but even then I think they definitely need a couple forwards and another dman that are above anything currently on the team.
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Conroy did say again yesterday the plan hasn't changed. In the end I think the potential of a "bottom out for multiple years" plan is not going to happen, and mostly because it's likely not possible with Wolf in net.
So with that in mind now the plan really comes down to strong asset management and strong drafting.
On the asset management front there isn't much to get mad at so far. They've moved out UFAs (Hanifin, Lindholm) and older players that still had some term (Toffoli, Markstrom), and they've brought in picks and U-25 players.
Drafting so far looks really promising with a good 2023 draft and a potentially franchise changing 2024 draft based on how good those guys look this year.
Really they have some assets left to move in Andersson, Coleman and Kadri over the next two seasons, and still have 2 1sts this year and 2 1sts next year.
They will need to figure out how to get that top center, but otherwise things are in good shape IMO.