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Old 10-17-2025, 12:20 PM   #10054
Jiri Hrdina
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Originally Posted by ComixZone View Post
The Flames hope they're two years away from contending. In reality, those next two years have to be MASSIVE from a drafting and player acquiring perspective for that to come to fruition.

They need to draft two top tier forwards between now and then, and one more top tier defenceman (maybe Mews is that).

Free agency is pretty much a barren wasteland at this point, not that Calgary was a priority destination anyways.

The tier of player we'd be after also rarely gets dealt.

Finishing at or near the bottom this year is critical to hitting that "we're contending in the new building". If they don't bottom out this year, I just don't see the path forward to contending in 2 years time. That's not a long runway, and this team doesn't have what they need in the system yet. They're not in a bad position, but to say "they're 2 years away from contending"...you only contend based on the players you have in the fold, and we're not there yet. While we're doing a good job, we don't have a system that is going to launch us into that Florida/Colorado/Tampa Bay etc. tier.

I don't think it's realistic that they will be contending in 2 years. But they could be "on the upswing" moving towards that.

This article from the Athletic is helpful
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/659...tiers-2025-26/

So in 2 years i would hope the Flames are where teams like Anaheim and Chicago are today. That may even be a reach, but they should be moving in that direction by that time.
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