Also, I want to add a comment about trading draft picks, mainly in response to posters saying the Flames had a chance at a better player by keeping their 2nd. When you trade for a 2nd round pick it is not a trade for a player that will either become a star or never play an NHL game, you are trading for a 30% chance at picking an NHLer depending on your scouting staff and draft day luck.
It always bugged me when people called the Kiprusoff trade as being for Vlasic. No the trade was for a 2nd round pick which the Sharks turned into Vlasic because they had good scouting and 29 other teams passed on him in the draft.
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Neutral on the trade. Not big on Lazar but have no issue giving up what we did to give him a change of scenery. He sure sounded enthusiastic about the deal and coming to Calgary so who knows, could work out
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Loubo somehow knew this was going to happen. He is the best hockey guy on the radio. I like Lazar for his potential. Not to be a top line guy, but maybe a 2 RW, 3 RW or even 4C or RW down the road. Until, I think he will be taking turns replacing Chaisson and even Staj on occasional evenings. He's a large body who tosses the weight around. If he can get his scoring touch back I think in a year or two he may move up a couple of lines.
I was just trawling the comments on Facebook from Sens fans. General consensus from them seems to be Ottawa rushed him to the NHL & he could have benefited from a year or two in the minors. Change of scene should do him good, sad to see him go etc. Obviously a few people think he's a complete bust and a useless player, but I'd say 8/10 posters were sad to see him go – and sad Ottawa botched his development – but happy he was going to get an opportunity in Calgary.
I have to admit I'm more pleased with this move than if we had gotten Iggy or Vrbata. Kid still has untapped potential and he immediately tops our depth chart for RW prospects (if you can still classify him as such). 22-year-old former first rounder who fills a gaping organisational hole and cost a press box riding Dman and 2nd rounder? Could pay off big time.
Sign him to a cheap RFA deal, give him plenty of opportunities and maybe this kid fulfills his potential. It is worrisome that he's only got 1 assist this season, but I can vouch for mono being a real drag and I can't imagine recovering from that & trying to play NHL hockey. He would have had no strength or energy this entire year and probably lost a lot of muscle mass – which a lot of 2013 scouting reports said was something he needed to gain to be effective in the NHL.
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They swapped flexibility for someone elses mostly developed asset.
The flames used a 2nd round pick as part of the Hamilton acquisition. The Flames now have 5 picks in 7 rounds in the upcoming draft and if they re-sign Stone and Elliott they will have 4 picks next year.
As Textcritic says, if the flames are going to compete in the next 5 years they are going to do with with the talent already in the system. Well, if that's the case, the Flames are in huge f'ing trouble because they don't have anything in the system, all their bluechippers are contributing NHL'ers.
The Flames are goign to have to go out and buy a significant asset at some point and the philosophical direction should be accumulating a quantity of picks in order to make trades to acquire impact players without having the complication of sending significant salary the other way.
Lazar isn't some massive mistake, but I don't see much difference between acquiring him and acquiring Shinkaruk, except one was significantly more costly to acquire than the other in my opinion. You're banking on an improbable turnaround to justify the expense of the acquisition. What it does for the Flames is it removes flexibility in future acquisitions which have the potential to have a greater total impact on the franchise.
I don't hate the player, I just hate the fact the Flames are once again deficit spending with draft picks. You'd think they would have learned their lesson by now.
Is Lazar now not part of our system that could help us compete in the next 5 years? Again, comes back to the point, fair if you'd prefer the player that the 2nd round pick would become to be part of the system, but let's not pretend this player at this age is a mostly developed asset at this point, and isn't now part of the internal system or funnel we'll have to draw from. Just because we haven't owned him from draft day, doesn't make him any less viable or valuable.
Interesting point in regards to draft pick as currency. I think that's a fair statement. What I don't think is likely is that the Flames were going to be able to leverage this years 2nd round pick, in a weak draft, to pull the trigger on something to fill one of this teams significant holes before that draft pick became an actual player in this years draft.
Love this trade. Lazar is a kid I hoped the Flames would have drafted if he was still around by the Poirrier pick.
For whatever reason he hasn't worked out in OTT but I see him as a Tkachuk type player for the Flames. Maybe a bit of a project but worth dumping Jokipakka. The 2nd is steep but I think that all has to do with the Sens picking him 17th overall and his age. Just think same age as Monahan.
