My hope (again just a hope) is that if the flames do finish near the bottom of the league, the recent years of prioritizing drafting and development will help in making it a faster rebuild. There are lots of rebuilds that kick off quickly before there is any kind of established base of prospects. Chicago was an example of this - they drafted poorly for years and had poor prospect development. When they hit bottom in the 2023 draft, they had virtually nothing in the cupboards when they got Bedard. He is still somewhat on an island but there are more pieces now because they have been bad for years. It’s making it a long rebuild.
The flames, on the other hand have been drafting and developing well for years and have lots of young players on the cusp of being NHL-ready. Ones that have not been rushed into the NHL. If they got McKenna, his route to the NHL would be much shorter of course than the current players in the system but the timing would work well. Guys like Zary, Coronato, Wolf, Bahl, Parekh, Brz, Honzek, Klapka, Frost and Posposil have been developing for years and are now either established NHLers or are likely to become that this season. And then there are players like Gridin, Basha, Reschny, Mews, Morin and Potter that are in the system that will be another wave of players coming in. And the flames also have vets like Weegar, Huberdeau, Coleman, Backlund and Kadri to mentor the young players. Even if they traded 2-3 of those players, there would still be decent veteran leadership. Getting a top 5 pick in a good draft this season could be perfect timing.
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