2022/2023 Trade Speculation and Rumours

[Moneyhands23]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

He’s only actually said that about hiring a coach.

No, he has talked about it in regards to the draft and contract negotiations and team building.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Moneyhands23

No, he has talked about it in regards to the draft and contract negotiations and team building.

I asked someone to find me examples and all they could find was coaching hires. And that was one time.

Mandela effect.

EDIT: he once also mentioned it WRT Valimaki’s injury recovery “process”.

[Poe969]

It's not bad luck when you're eliminated from playoffs but still icing all your best players because you're "playing for pride" thr Flames could have had better picks if they were smarter at the end of seasons.

All these years, people on here say "you still ice your best team and try to win because you don't want a losing culture to develop". Because of that, the Flames have missed out on better picks and still haven't won anything.

This franchise won't ever do a proper rebuild because they always think they're better than they are.

[Cleveland Steam Whistle]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

I agree they were forced into it in 2013 and were 2 years too late on that but forced or not they decided to turn over the team and aimed to pick high.

I think it is pretty risky to be really bad on purpose for longer than you need to especially in a market like this. Due to some savvy deals the Flames had 5 players picked in the top 6 over 4 drafts and also were fortunate to hit on some mid-late round picks.

When you look at their roster 2/3 of the top line and second line were players drafted by the team with another couple of guys in the bottom 6. 2 of their top 4 D were also drafted by the team and another was a 5th overall pick acquired at 21.

Forced to rebuild or not they took the approach to draft high for a few years and at the time they started to push forward they had Monahan, Gaudreau, Bennett, Hamilton, Tkachuk as their young core. A couple years later they step back and turn a prospect who doesn’t want to sign a 25 year old and 27 year old and turned them into former 5th overalls who were 23 and 21 at the time.

You play in a $hit market like Calgary it gets very risky to try and have an extended period of sucking. Edmonton picked top 10 11 of 13 years and only 7 years after they picked a once in a generation type player do they look like a team that can contend for a little while. Buffalo has picked high for a decade and still not out of the woods yet.

What is a proper rebuild? 5 years of high picks? 10?

Agree with pretty much all of your post. I don't think for me an "intentional" rebuild = a certain number of years of high picks. I think it's a conscious decision to liquidate valuable assets for futures, and an attempt to maximize value on those assets. So in the 2013 scenario, trying to optimize return on Iginla, before all you can get for him is scraps on the last year of his contract.

In this situation, the Flames have done the opposite with Johnny, they want to retain, and did everything they could to increase the chances of that happening this past year. Kept him on the team, made moves to improve the team, not only because the team was doing good, but likely because they thought that upped the chances to keep him around.

So if Johnny chooses to walk, to the points being made, we now must evaluate post Johnny what do we do? Rebuild or re-tool. To me that won't be about trying to suck for longer, it will be about optimizing return on the good assets we have now (Chucky, who IMO could be re-signed if he wants to and we could still rebuild, but if he wants to is key) with a key target of futures with those moves.

[Saqe]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

This is the key to the entire summer. You cannot build a team on mid-tier free agents. You should generally *never* sign mid-tier free agents, regardless of where your team is. You overpay for them and it hurts the cap structure of your team. It’s better to overpay in the trade market for a player with term (like Tampa did with Coleman) than overpay that type of player in free agency.

Yeah I agree mostly with you here, unless it's an incredible fit and meets the team's needs you should stay away from these kinds of UFA signings. But desperate GMs will keep doing desperate things and I guess you can't blame them if their job security is on the line.

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

What is a proper rebuild? 5 years of high picks? 10?

You spend 2-3 years tanking.

Year 1: The sell-off. You empty your roster of good players that will return value with the end game being you suck, but are loaded with futures.
Year 2: You suck.
Year 3: You suck again if you didn’t get the players in the draft you believe you needed.

You then start building things back up. You make some trades, target *elite* talent in free agency and you just try to be as good as you can every season knowing that you have those foundational picks from Years 1-3.

There’s no shortcut or quick “rebuild” but the actual tanking part should be limited to 2-3 years depending on draft position success. After that? You do what the Flames do now, which is do whatever you can to be as best as you can but the key difference is you have the foundational pieces drafted in years 1-3.

It’s better than aimlessly wandering in mediocrity and screwing your future by loading up on UFA contracts

[Moneyhands23]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

You spend 2-3 years tanking.

Year 1: The sell-off. You empty your roster of good players that will return value with the end game being you suck, but are loaded with futures.
Year 2: You suck.
Year 3: You suck again if you didn’t get the players in the draft you believe you needed.

You then start building things back up. You make some trades, target *elite* talent in free agency and you just try to be as good as you can every season knowing that you have those foundational picks from Years 1-3.

There’s no shortcut or quick “rebuild” but the actual tanking part should be limited to 2-3 years depending on draft position success.

It’s better than aimlessly wandering in mediocrity and screwing your future by loading up on UFA contracts

The Flames are in a great spot for it as well. We have 3 1st round forwards and our best goalie prospect ever. Also a lot of late picks that are trending well. I'd bet the 3rd year/season we would already be seeing some serious growth.

[Poe969]

I hate when people bring up the oilers or Sabres as examples of teams not being good, getting high picks, then still not being good.

Pittsburgh was bad on purpose, worked out well.

Chicago was bad on purpose, worked out well.

Colorado was conveniently bad for a time, worked out well.


What do those 3 have in common? Timing. They all got high picks in really good drafts. Next year's draft looks ridiculously good, and has what looks like a generational player in Bedard. If they started to rebuild now and could kick it off by getting the #2 overall pick(+) this year (Tkachuk to NYJ), things could really turn around for this team. Imagine getting the #2 pick, then Montreal takes Slafkovsky...having Wright in the pipeline would turn things around alone.

[TOfan]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

You spend 2-3 years tanking.

Year 1: The sell-off. You empty your roster of good players that will return value with the end game being you suck, but are loaded with futures.
Year 2: You suck.
Year 3: You suck again if you didn’t get the players in the draft you believe you needed.

You then start building things back up. You make some trades, target *elite* talent in free agency and you just try to be as good as you can every season knowing that you have those foundational picks from Years 1-3.

There’s no shortcut or quick “rebuild” but the actual tanking part should be limited to 2-3 years depending on draft position success. After that? You do what the Flames do now, which is do whatever you can to be as best as you can but the key difference is you have the foundational pieces drafted in years 1-3.

It’s better than aimlessly wandering in mediocrity and screwing your future by loading up on UFA contracts

Essentially what the Flames did in 2013 and 2014.

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by Moneyhands23

The Flames are in a great spot for it as well. We have 3 1st round forwards and our best goalie prospect ever. Also a lot of late picks that are trending well. I'd bet the 3rd year/season we would already be seeing some serious growth.

If 2022/2023 is the sell-off year, it’d be hard to be as bad as some of the other teams that are tanking but we could accumulate a pretty amazing haul of futures with our current roster. Hanifin, Backlund, Mangiapane, Tkachuk, and Tanev would bring in oodles! Oodles!

Then 2023/2024 is where you’d really lay on the suck.

…or we could just friggin’ extend Johnny and Chucky and continue to hope to be an outlier as far as Stanley cup champions are concerned. I’d be happy with that.

Originally Posted by TOfan

Essentially what the Flames did in 2013 and 2014.

The summer of 2014 is where the management team screwed up. Spending money in free agency and not trading away players for future assets.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

You spend 2-3 years tanking.

Year 1: The sell-off. You empty your roster of good players that will return value with the end game being you suck, but are loaded with futures.
Year 2: You suck.
Year 3: You suck again if you didn’t get the players in the draft you believe you needed.

You then start building things back up. You make some trades, target *elite* talent in free agency and you just try to be as good as you can every season knowing that you have those foundational picks from Years 1-3.

There’s no shortcut or quick “rebuild” but the actual tanking part should be limited to 2-3 years depending on draft position success.

It’s better than aimlessly wandering in mediocrity and screwing your future by loading up on UFA contracts

So the Flames having high picks from 2013-2016 was an adequate rebuild?

2013- Flames sell off Iginla and Bouwmeester add picks and draft top 6
2014- team continues to suck but play a hard working entertaining style pick top 4
2015- surprising run to the second round. Still make rebuilding trades at the deadline consolidate picks to add a 22 year old former top 10 pick
2016- finish bottom 5 but get jumped in the lottery and still get the second best player from the draft.

Once you start paying these young guys is when a team should start pushing forward.

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by Moneyhands23

The Flames are in a great spot for it as well. We have 3 1st round forwards and our best goalie prospect ever. Also a lot of late picks that are trending well. I'd bet the 3rd year/season we would already be seeing some serious growth.

I agree. By year 3 this team could have a lot of youth on cheap contracts playing 2nd and 3rd line roles. If we do well with a Tkachuk trade and with our first in 2023 this team could be set up very well right when the cap explodes

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

So the Flames having high picks from 2013-2016 was an adequate rebuild?

2013- Flames sell off Iginla and Bouwmeester add picks and draft top 6
2014- team continues to suck but play a hard working entertaining style pick top 4
2015- surprising run to the second round. Still make rebuilding trades at the deadline consolidate picks to add a 22 year old former top 10 pick
2016- finish bottom 5 but get jumped in the lottery and still get the second best player from the draft.

Once you start paying these young guys is when a team should start pushing forward.

No it wasn’t because they didn’t draft top-3 multiple times. They also made horrible selling trades in 2013 that completely sewered jump starting the rebuild. I don’t hold that against the current management though.

[Macho0978]

I'm not a huge fan of long rebuilds but I find it funny that some people on here saying that Johnny is worth $11 mil or $12 mil a year because he's that good and he's that much better than Tkachuk or the same guys that seem to think if we lose our best player for nothing that we can just move forward without him and avoid a rebuild?

He's so good he can make $12 mil but we can replace him with Kadri? Maybe Forsberg but even then we are taking a huge step back and still have cap issues assuming that Forsberg will want more from the Flames then he is demanding from Nashville.

Now is the best time to rebuild. Next draft could have 5 superstars.

[Poe969]

And they were not the strongest drafts.

[TOfan]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

If 2022/2023 is the sell-off year, it’d be hard to be as bad as some of the other teams that are tanking but we could accumulate a pretty amazing haul of futures with our current roster. Hanifin, Backlund, Mangiapane, Tkachuk, and Tanev would bring in oodles! Oodles!

Then 2023/2024 is where you’d really lay on the suck.

…or we could just friggin’ extend Johnny and Chucky and continue to hope to be an outlier as far as Stanley cup champions are concerned. I’d be happy with that.



The summer of 2014 is where the management team screwed up. Spending money in free agency and not trading away players for future assets.

The Flames were never going to go full Oilers and trot out an army of 19 year olds to feed to the wolves.

Bringing in Engelland and to a lesser extent others probably was going to be valued more by management than hoping lottery balls bounced your way on the right year.

It’s not a coincidence this team has never drafted higher than 4 and as long as the current ownership group is involved, I would be surprised to see anything different. Whether that is how they should approach things is a different argument though.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by Poe969

I hate when people bring up the oilers or Sabres as examples of teams not being good, getting high picks, then still not being good.

Pittsburgh was bad on purpose, worked out well.

Chicago was bad on purpose, worked out well.

Colorado was conveniently bad for a time, worked out well.


What do those 3 have in common? Timing. They all got high picks in really good drafts. Next year's draft looks ridiculously good, and has what looks like a generational player in Bedard. If they started to rebuild now and could kick it off by getting the #2 overall pick(+) this year (Tkachuk to NYJ), things could really turn around for this team. Imagine getting the #2 pick, then Montreal takes Slafkovsky...having Wright in the pipeline would turn things around alone.

the Oilers of course have been all over the place, but they did time the McDavid draft, Hall- warts and all was also an MVP (just not for the Oilers) and Drasaitl at 3...admittedly they've got a bit better, but despite their good fortune...

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by TOfan

The Flames were never going to go full Oilers and trot out an army of 19 year olds to feed to the wolves.

Bringing in Engelland and to a lesser extent others probably was going to be valued more by management than hoping lottery balls bounced your way on the right year.

It’s not a coincidence this team has never drafted higher than 4 and as long as the current ownership group is involved, I would be surprised to see anything different. Whether that is how they should approach things is a different argument though.

We have enough of history that the Flames approach to doing things in the last 30+ years is wrong if their goal is to win a Stanley Cup.

Signing Hiller, Raymond, and Engelland hurt this team. Without those players, perhaps we would have traded away more than just Glencross the following season and while we may have missed the playoffs, we would have been better off in the long run with how the team has drafted since Tree got here. Impatience.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

No it wasn’t because they didn’t draft top-3 multiple times. They also made horrible selling trades in 2013 that completely sewered jump starting the rebuild. I don’t hold that against the current management though.

You are right the Flames would have been way better off with Drouin, Reinhart, Strome and Puljujarvi

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

You are right the Flames would have been way better off with Drouin, Reinhart, Strome and Puljujarvi

I throw 2013 out because it was Feaster/Weisbrod, but in 2013 had we drafted 1st or 2nd the world would be different.

Draisaitl over Bennett wouldn’t have had a big impact?

We still would have drafted Tkachuk, we were looking to trade up to make sure we got him. The fact we got Tkachuk where we did was a brilliant result.

The Flames have drafted very well under Treliving, Treliving just hasn’t had the opportunity to draft where he’s needed to draft in order to build a Stanley Cup team.