Quote:
Originally Posted by SemicolonD
I’m not saying I wasn’t cheering for them to make it. Nor am I saying I’m not proud of the effort they put in. But tell me where I was wrong and I’ll stand corrected. Where is the path to perpetual success for the Flames without the traditional means of acquiring the elite players we need to do so?
We need some miracle trades or late 1sts that turn into franchise players, and that can definitely happen. It’s just tough not to get sour knowing we don’t help our odds in years where we should, and we fumble in years where the pressure is on and we’ve spent to the cap.
If anything I said was wrong let me know, but after such a soul crushing way to end the season I don’t think I’m out of line to get a little doom and gloom for a bit lol.
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They are two years into a rebuild.
The big disaster this year would have been finishing 11th-13th and having to send Montreal a near-top 10 selection while we pick in the late teens and early 20s.
As it stands, this adventure of a season will end up costing them 2-4 spots in the mushy middle of a 1st round they will still have two selections in.
This year, they had no noteworthy UFAs. Next year, Andersson, Backlund, Bean and Miromanov are all UFA, and account for $13Mish in cap space.
Plus Markstrom’s retained money will be gone after next year.
Plus the cap will be going up.
The Flames won a round with Gaudreau and Monahan, and still managed to draft 6th overall after trading for Dougie Hamilton, with Gio, Brodie, Monahan, Gaudreau, and Bennett on the roster.
This team isn’t that. Their key players are all well north of 30, and I don’t see them having a ton more to give than they did this year. No knock on them, either - all of Kadri, Huberdeau, Weegar, Rasmus, Backlund… they left it out there.
Their best forwards of the next decade haven’t even been drafted.
They stole a top-2 player at 9 last year.
As long as they don’t blow their brains out to sign Bennett and Marner this summer, they’ll still be one of the lowest cap teams in the game, and they’ll retain their flexibility.
They didn’t gift the Habs a premium pick, and we found out a bunch of guys in our system can play (Wolf, Coronato, Zary, Klapka).
They have six selections in the top 64 over the next two drafts, and that’s before trading anyone.
I’m not saying you’re wrong to be upset they didn’t make it, just that there’s no need to lament the big picture fate of this team.