I don’t even see the Flames is a position to “tank” by the standard definition
Usually a team that decides to tank vs rebuild is trading their best 25-29 year olds / core to completely start over.
The Flames have no one in this category except Anderson a pending UFA
It’s actually quite remarkable to effectively be missing an age group of players who provide any real impact.
If the Flames were actually tanking for 1st overall they would trade Cornato , Weegar , Andersson , Shags (just extended) and now I guess Frost (who instead they acquired) .
Chicago moved guys like Debrincat and Dach . That’s a tank . Trading a 36 year old Kadri ? Huge difference
Trading your oldest players when you are no where near contention - even if they are your best players - isn’t tanking to me. That’s smart and normal team cycle management even if it makes you worse in the short term
You can trade all your old vets without tearing it to the studs . Would this team be worse without Coleman and Kadri next year ? Sure . Would they plummet to last ? No if they truely are a borderline playoff team (and added a UFA Center from example at start of the period )
This is where I have to most difficulty with the “non tank “ argument . Slowly trading all your old players to stay at 16th and pushing out the draft picks to future years vs trade them now , most likely get a better pick , AND draft capital to be used now
And if Huberdeau , Weegar , Backlund , Lombeg and the new guys coming in can’t keep a culture - the culture sucked to begin with
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