The issue is, if they make the playoffs, ownership is happy.
So the mandate has always been "Can we win now?" and if the answer is "Yes." then the chips are pushed in, year after year.
The results were marginally competitive teams, just good enough to be close every year, and not bad enough to garner high draft picks (which had basically been traded off).
Even when Feaster took over from Sutter as GM, the mandate was "win now".
It's the oilers mandate too at this point, for the same reasons. "We're a piece away!"
The Flames were wrong. They weren't close. They had Kiprusoff. Kipper goes down, Flames draft at lottery time. It was masked. We've been basically bad since then, inconsistent at best.
High picks are not "the answer" (look at Edmonton). But it shows with players like Monahan, Tkachuk, Bennett (we hope) etc - these are our better players. (Recently had some nice defensemen added in).
We've whiffed on free agents - Brouwer, Neal, blech. Had guys like Stajan on board for years and years. Not a passenger but.... no real talent.
What we have now is a team of mediocre pieces with experience, some younger pieces that may get better but need seasoning. Our very best players are not as good as the very best players on other teams, outside of Gio and Johnny. And even then. Cole outplayed Gio in this series.
Need guys who would rather die than lose, and who are good enough to make it happen.
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