Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina
Tkachuk and Monahan were not complete players by any stretch. Nor was Johnny. They all improved as pros including when on the Flames roster. To not give the organization some credit for that strongly suggests you are applying a dose of bias in your analysis.
As I just posted, the problem for the Flames was a lack of talent in the pipeline for a lot of the last couple decades because of poor drafting (Sutter) and pick deficit (BT).
I would ask the question I did earlier: what other high skilled prospects, outside of Sam Bennet, do you think the Flames developed poorly?
If there is a pattern of poor development that you suggest it is, we should be able to look back at their drafts and pick out highly skilled guys that either bombed, or moved onto other organizations and found their way.
I will call out one guy: Sven. But we are going back to 2011, so not sure how relevant, but I think Hartley really f'd that kid up.
One could also point to Juuso. I really believe his knee injury de-railed him - he never had the same mobility he did prior to that.
Perhaps there are other examples.
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If you're going to chastise me for excluding Monahan and Tkachuk, why is your argument premised on there are no examples except Sam and Sven, who were drafted 4th and 13th overall, respectively, and should have succeeded but for the Flames?
But in addition to them:
Pelletier
Morgan Klimchuk
Emile Poirier
Tom Erixon
Tyler Wotherspoon
Oliver Kylington
Valimaki (as you say, maybe injuries)
Granlund (maybe)
These are all first and second round picks that were trending in the right direction post-draft and amounted to nothing or less than they could have. And outside of the first and second round, we've found nobody except Gaudreau and, I guess, Mangiapane. The jury is out on whether guys like Suniev, Honzek, and Stromgren will go anywhere.
My view is this organization does not give skill guys the space to succeed and grow at the NHL despite flaws in their game, because we insist that a player has no flaws and makes no mistakes before they're given premium ice time. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills in defending this as we've been complaining about it since literally forever.