Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
The whole braintrust weighed in on the deal. Multiple people involved - Treliving, Conroy, Maloney, Bean - have attested to the discussions around the deals and the direction of the team. There were only a handful of deals on the table, and the Flames brass - almost certainly including Edwards - rejected the rebuild option (which is what the Hurricanes were reportedly offering). That left only two real offers - the Panthers and Blues - and by all accounts the Florida deal was far better.
I know it's a lot easier to scapegoat when you imagine that trades are just two GMs cutting deals on the phone together. They're not. The major decisions the Flames brass have made over the last few years have been collective. And most of the people who made them are still at the helm of the team.
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And at the time, they still had a pretty strong D corps, Lindholm, Toffoli, Backlund, Coleman, and 35 goal Mangiapane. Many on long contracts. It's not a shock that a rebuild at that moment was a heavy undertaking.