Nah, they drafted Stamkos and Hedman in 08 and 09. If that was a rebuild, it flopped and saw them once again drafting top 3 four years later (which they blew by drafting Drouin). They were still rockin' with older players like Vinnie LeCav, MSL, Brewer, by then, so I'm not sure how it was even a rebuild. Do most rebuilds take 10 years?
It was the emergence of Kucherov, Point and Vasilevsky that pushed them to the top.
Yes alot of rebuilds take 10 years.
Most players don't start hitting their competitive prime until their mid 20s.
So you're looking to seriously compete about 5-8 years after you draft your core.
Unless you get a McDavid caliber player.
Most players don't start hitting their competitive prime until their mid 20s.
So you're looking to seriously compete about 5-8 years after you draft your core.
Unless you get a McDavid caliber player.
I can't see the Flames finishing out of the bottom 5 next season. Too much has to go right for them to do so.
They will finish this season somewhere between 7th and 9th last. Will the Flames be a better team next season, be about the same next season, or worse next season? I don't know about everyone else, but i am picking worse. There seems to be a very solid chance that Markstrom gets traded this off-season as well. I can't imagine the Flames being anything other than worse next season. There will have to be some career years coming out of players, or a few top-notch UFAs wanting to sign here next season, or Conroy shifting gears and trading futures for win-now players. Sure, that will increase the standings for the Flames, though I am not sure it will make much sense in the long term, however.
You have to look at the teams in the bottom 10 of the standings and go "better, same or worse" as well, to figure out if those teams are likely to improve or not. Some are wildcards for me (Anaheim - why are they still so bad?? - and Arizona - I will just call them New Edmonton from now on).
Also, this shouting down of 'rebuild' or 'scorched earth' rebuild - why bother? Before shouting down, please explain at what threshold a retool turns into a rebuild, and again at what threshold a rebuild turns into scorched earth. There is a lot of ambiguity when it comes to that. If you look around the league, even the scorched-earth rebuild teams held onto a lot of vets - it usually isn't as 'scorched earth' as that description sounds like, but again, there is a lot of room for variance between all three terms.
IMO, the Flames are practically in a scorched-earth rebuild right now, or at least they will be if Markstrom gets traded in the off-season. I guess it depends on what your own definitions are, but when the Flames in a span of 1 season trade away their #1 scorer, their #1 centre (though he wasn't playing as such), their #1 and #.. 4(?) and #5 defencemen - all for futures, that is fairly scorched-earth. They also let go a lot of older vets from the previous regime and replaced them with youth.
Flames are likely going to make further trades (outside of Markstrom as noted already) with some players that will be upcoming UFAs after next season, so there will probably be an additional sell-off next deadline.
I think this is the right way to go. I am glad that Backlund and Coleman are here. I hope Kylington is re-signed, and together with Andersson and Weegar, they keep the defence from being outright terrible while this team goes through the growing pains of having young defencemen develop.
As for the Kadri talk - I can see a parting of the ways in the upcoming off-season. Kadri did win a cup already, and if he is genuinely happy living in Calgary and sees himself settling here after his playing days are done, then the following argument is moot. However, from Kadri's perspective, does he really want to spend the next 3 years of what could be the last 3 years of his career on a team that isn't going to compete for a playoff spot, much less for the cup itself? From the Flames' perspective, do they want to hang onto a player who is doing a fantastic job at helping the kids develop (lots of credit to Kadri here), but who is looking like he will become a negative asset once the Flames are ready to compete, resulting in either living with that cap hit, buying it out or having to attach a sweetener to move him? He will be 34 before next season starts, which is included in the five seasons he has left after this one. How effective will he be at 36? Point is, there COULD be a mutually benefiting parting of the ways. I can see it either way.
I do see a bottom 5 team this upcoming season. I just don't see where the improvement is going to come from, and I can only see 2 teams that are 'for sure' going to be worse, with another 2 or 3 teams having varying degrees of question marks being in the same tier as the Flames.
Conroy began his tenure with six UFAs - he extended the only one who’d been a lifelong Calgary Flame, and turned the other five into 15 assets, including four Russian/Belarussian NHLers, two 1sts, one (likely two) 2nds, and three prospect D.
There are only four Flames under contract longer than two years heading into next season.
They will have all their retention slots available once the season is over.
No key RFAs due major raises for at least another year.
Conroy can say “playoffs” all he wants - the goal for the players in the room should always be playoffs. They’re not getting paid to lose.
But this is a rebuild. There are 12 UFAs over the next two seasons, including both goalies, one of whom has already been in trade rumours for two months.
This doesn’t mean they’re going to trade all of them - Sharangovich works with Huberdeau - if he wants to stay for a fair contract, keep him. Same with Andersson - he’s a drafted Flame. If he wants to stay at a non-extortionist number, keep him by all means.
But they won’t keep them all, and the ones that aren’t kept are going to be traded. For 2nds, 3rds, 5ths, it doesn’t matter - they’ll be traded for something.
They can’t reasonably blow their brains out in UFA, since they just traded the five best UFAs on the market.
They don’t have a choice. They're in a rebuild.
Knowing everything about the way this organization does business, there’s no way they don’t want Tij Iginla - they have the assets to secure him if they choose.
I don’t think they’re going to want him to fail. I think they’re going to want to around him with another two draft’s worth of high picks, and be an ascendant team when their new building opens.
Don’t listen to what they say - they say a lot of things.
Look at what they’re doing.
What they’re doing is rebuilding
Also…
“This is a…
Throw down, a show down, hell no I can’t slow down!… it’s gonna go!”
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Most players don't start hitting their competitive prime until their mid 20s.
So you're looking to seriously compete about 5-8 years after you draft your core.
Unless you get a McDavid caliber player.
Oh, come on. Hughes got 99 points last year (year 4). Hischier was good quiuckly as well. NJD should have been competitive this year except they had bad injuries to core players and lacked a goalie, which they failed to address. In fact many 1OAs compete right away.
And you have to keep those top picks if you think you are waiting 10 years. Calgary had a guy who would go 2nd in a 2016 redraft. He left town two seasons ago.
The difference between teams that make it is (a) they retain star players for more than a cycle and (b) they construct the rest of their team well through excellent drafting, trading and developing. Matthews was 40 goals in year 1.
PPG in year 2. Bedard is close to PPG.
lol @ anyone thinking this team isn't capable of bottoming out if they get rid of Markstrom.
See the demolition job by Panthers and Hurricanes only likely to be continued by the Avs and Knights later this week.
It is possible Wolf steps up and is as good or better than Markstrom. Odds are Wolf takes at least a season to develop into even an average starter.
But 100%, after witnessing what this team is like playing in front of Vladar yesterday against Carolina, the Flames, without Markstrom, are absolute bottom feeders.
Agreed, most top 3 picks play and can contribute right away. That about the game has changed in the last decade.
Your roster around them is almost sure to be garbage though, which is why the bottom-out rebuilds (can) take quite a bit of time to turn around.
I think with our amateur scouting track record, if we keep the majority of our picks the next few years AND have the opportunity to pick at least 2 guys in the top 10, we'll have the injection of talent into our system needed to turn this thing around quicker than not, maybe even quick enough for this to be a 'retool' and not rebuild.
It will be future behavior that determines if it's a rebuild or an Ottawa type of schat show. If the Flsmes have this year and next year than make a Dougie Hamilton type trade...same thing will happen. If they are patient, than it's a rebuild.
Honestly I don't have the answer. Unless you draft McDavid it's impossible to build a team capable of more than one conference final run in Canada, especially a small outpost like Calgary.
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It will be future behavior that determines if it's a rebuild or an Ottawa type of schat show. If the Flsmes have this year and next year than make a Dougie Hamilton type trade...same thing will happen. If they are patient, than it's a rebuild.
Honestly I don't have the answer. Unless you draft McDavid it's impossible to build a team capable of more than one conference final run in Canada, especially a small outpost like Calgary.
Conroy said the next 3 years are for building, so a Hamilton style trade could be on the table in year 3 of this rebuild.
Canadian teams lack patience. 3 years is also a very aggressive time line.
Oh, come on. Hughes got 99 points last year (year 4). Hischier was good quiuckly as well. NJD should have been competitive this year except they had bad injuries to core players and lacked a goalie, which they failed to address. In fact many 1OAs compete right away.
And you have to keep those top picks if you think you are waiting 10 years. Calgary had a guy who would go 2nd in a 2016 redraft. He left town two seasons ago.
The difference between teams that make it is (a) they retain star players for more than a cycle and (b) they construct the rest of their team well through excellent drafting, trading and developing. Matthews was 40 goals in year 1.
PPG in year 2. Bedard is close to PPG.
I didn't say anything about production. I said competitive prime and to seriously compete.
Sure some top drafted players can produce decently fairly quickly.
It takes time for a young core to learn how to be seriously competitive in playoffs.
Devils aren't there yet.
Toronto maybe starting to get there.
I didn't say anything about production. I said competitive prime and to seriously compete.
Sure some top drafted players can produce decently fairly quickly.
It takes time for a young core to learn how to be seriously competitive in playoffs.
Devils aren't there yet.
Toronto maybe starting to get there.
It took Crosby 3 years to reach a final and 4 years to win it. Some guys take less time.
Conroy said the next 3 years are for building, so a Hamilton style trade could be on the table in year 3 of this rebuild.
Canadian teams lack patience. 3 years is also a very aggressive time line.
Than it has an upside of 5 playoff appearances in 11 years with three as a bottom level seed and two teams that had home ice. Poor Conroy, hate to see him become as disliked as Treliving is one day.
__________________ "Some guys like old balls"
Patriots QB Tom Brady
No,you are seeing what you want to see because you want the team to go full tank. If you think a team like Chicago has more or equal talent then either you are a crappy judge of talent or as I said, you are just seeing what you want to see.
Sorry I honestly forgot Chicago. But most of the other teams you mentioned I think are in the same ballpark as the Flames next year.
I didn't say anything about production. I said competitive prime and to seriously compete.
Sure some top drafted players can produce decently fairly quickly.
It takes time for a young core to learn how to be seriously competitive in playoffs.
Devils aren't there yet.
Toronto maybe starting to get there.
Your post had 3 or 4 different arguments in it. What happened with TB was that their first rebuild wasn't taking so they tanked again. But they also got lucky getting Vasilevsky (thanks Feaster) and Point.
I actually think most teams that translate a rebuild into Stanley Cup winners do it when their stars are on ELCs or within 1-2 years and still in cheap contracts. If they don’t do it then, it isn’t likely they ever will (since it only gets more difficult to manage the cap and there is less room to build a high-quality team around their top picks).
I actually think most teams that translate a rebuild into Stanley Cup winners do it when their stars are on ELCs or within 1-2 years and still in cheap contracts. If they don’t do it then, it isn’t likely they ever will (since it only gets more difficult to manage the cap and there is less room to build a high-quality team around their top picks).
Kind of like us when Tkachuk was on his ELC during our 2nd place finish in the league.
We also ran into a rebuilding Avalanche that had their star breakout under a cheap deal, and Makar on a ELC.
