It is still early in the rebuild process, but the team is at least setting themselves up at the draft floor. I give it a 9. Plenty of good reasons for skepticism, but the team drafts well and has loaded up on picks/young players.
In terms of 5 year spans of drafts, the Flames 2024 to 2028 draft range is currently in terms of number of high draft picks in the salary cap era*. The Flames have drafted (or have the rights to) for 23 first, second and third round picks from 2024 to 2028. And with the likes of Coleman, Kadri, Weegar, Whitecloud, etc... there is the potential for more.
2017 to 2021 Detroit: 28 first, second and third round picks
2020 to 2024 Chicago: 28 first, second and third round picks
2020 to 2024 Anaheim : 24 first, second and third round picks
In the salary cap era, that's it. Those are the teams have had a higher volume of picks in the first 3 rounds over a 5 year span.
A year or two bottoming out to get that elite centre and the Flames will be in a very good position to come out of this rebuild.
*Would be 2nd if the Flames didn't trade a 1st for Monahans cap dump and a 2nd for Frost/Farabee. And yes, a 1st overall has a much different value than 90th overall, but I already wasted enough time in Excel.
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