[Jay Random]

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but even if you leave the Gilmour trade out, Risebrough was still an awful GM. The Gilmour trade turned a great team into an average one, which Dave King coached so well that it looked like a contender – until the playoffs rolled around and everyone else geared up. But Risebrough's last summer as GM, he turned that average team into a disaster area.

First, he fired Dave King and replaced him with the greatly inferior Pierre Page. Page had history with the organization; maybe he was the only available coach with NHL experience whose phone number Risebrough knew.

Then he, um… fixed centre ice. At the end of the '94-95 season, the Flames' top four centres were Joe Nieuwendyk, Robert Reichel, Joel Otto, and Kelly Kisio. Kisio was retiring; there was no getting around that. You'd think that would make Risebrough keen to keep the other three, but you would be wrong.

First, Joel Otto went to free agency, and Risebrough balked at the (IIRC) $700,000 cost to re-sign one of the best shut-down centres of his era. That was avoidable; that left two.

Nieuwendyk and Reichel, by this point, hated being on the team, and it's clear Dave King wasn't the problem, because firing him didn't appease them. Reichel took off for the Frankfurt Lions; Nieuwendyk ended up sitting out and demanding a trade.

In one summer, the Flames lost all four of their regular NHL centres. They went into the new season with stopgaps and converted wingers. Risebrough was fired less than a month into the season. What a pity he wasn't fired in the spring, instead of Dave King.