This is a rebuild

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

Now that Markstrom has been dealt for a 1st in 2025 and Bahl, and Mangiapane has been dealt for Colorado’s 2nd rounder in 2025…

Anyone still wanna argue this isn’t a rebuild?

We have to spend $6M just to get to the cap floor with a 19 player roster.

So yeah, unless we sign Guentzel, Marchessault, Montour, and Walker to big money deals it's a rebuild.

It would be a lot of fun to see what/if the Flames spend $30M on.

[Goriders]

Think we’re going to find out in the next week or two what the near future looks like.

They have a ton of cap space. Will conman use it?

[CliffFletcher]

Ask again after free agency.

Clearly the Flames don’t expect to make the playoffs for a couple seasons. And they aren’t going to let any pending UFAs walk.

It remains to be seen if they want to ice a decent team, or are deliberately diving to the bottom of the standings. They may be resigned to not making the playoffs, but still prefer to finish 20th next season than 30th. We’ll have a better idea in a couple weeks.

[Vinny01]

Interesting to see if the sell off continues or if it is on pause until the trade deadline.

To me the vet that makes the most sense to move is Andersson followed by Kadri. With Weegar I prefer to keep him but he would have great value on the trade market.

To me Rasmus is the only guy they should really prioritize moving but everyone is for sale with the right price.

It does look like they will sign vets in free agency but on short term deals those pieces can be flipped for more picks and prospects at future deadlines and drafts.

[Hackey]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Ask again after free agency.

Clearly the Flames don’t expect to make the playoffs for a couple seasons. And they aren’t going to let any pending UFAs walk.

It remains to be seen if they want to ice a decent team, or are deliberately diving to the bottom of the standings. They may be resigned to not making the playoffs, but still prefer to finish 20th next season than 30th. We’ll have a better idea in a couple weeks.

I hope they make all or atleast the majority of their picks and stay clear of free agency unless it's a signing with the intention of flipping that player for more assets later. Any packaging of picks I'm hoping is it to move up in the draft and not a trade for a mid 20 NHLer. Use the cap space to take on a bad contract or two don't try to simply move up the standings a spot or two. So far I like the direction but I hope they do this for a few more seasons while drafting top 5 in those seasons. After that sure start trying to speed things up when you have a solid base to build around.

[Hockey_Ninja]

It's not a rebuild
It's a re-configuration
A re-up if you will

[Winsor_Pilates]

It's a revamp

[the-rasta-masta]

Revitalization

[Ford Prefect]

At the time of the Huberdeau trade I kind of wanted the Flames to rebuild. I figured the loss of both Gaudreau and Tkachuk was too much of a blow to recover from and that they had a golden opportunity to flip Huberdeau coming off his record setting season and kick start a rebuild/retool. The demise of Huberdeau accentuated that sentiment.

However, I think Huberdeau had to happen so that the Tre/Sutter era could be brought to a conclusion. Tre wasn’t the guy to execute a re-whatever. We needed Connie for that. Without the Huberdeau failure we probably don’t have Connie, and Connie may turn out to be the key piece in the Flames revival. Viewed through that lens, and Huberdeau being a likeable person, I’m okay with how things have played out.

[Two Fivenagame]

A Redux

[ComixZone]

Young Guns 2.0

Young Guns Rev. 2

Young Guns Ver. 2.0

Young Guns: Rebirth

Young Guns HD

Young Guns 4K

Young Guns "Same same but different"

[PepsiFree]

It’s not a rebuild because people said Conroy tried to sign guys to contracts they wouldn’t sign and that’s a reflection of Conroy’s incompetence and not Conroy having a smart plan so all credit goes to the players who didn’t sign the contracts and plus Conroy said it isn’t a rebuild and plus a bunch of players said they want to make the playoffs this year and plus there was a rumour that they want to sign a UFA and that’s evidence that event if this was a rebuild it would FAIL but it’s not even a rebuild so there.

[BurningSteel]

When are we moving Huberdeau?

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by BurningSteel

When are we moving Huberdeau?

7 hours, 6 minutes, 33 seconds from right.....now.

Most rebuilding teams never really get rid of every deal.

Chicago was rocking a freshly minted 8 year deal with Seth Jones.

San Jose had a brand new Tomas Hertl deal, and are still rocking a Logan Couture contract.

[Flamesfan05]

If Conroy is smart, take advantage of the cap to get more picks and prospects for the rebuild

If you have to sign someone, sign someone that you can trade later for profit. Not someone like Huberdeau or Kadri who you are stuck with forever

[Roof-Daddy]

Originally Posted by Flamesfan05

If Conroy is smart, take advantage of the cap to get more picks and prospects for the rebuild

If you have to sign someone, sign someone that you can trade later for profit. Not someone like Huberdeau or Kadri who you are stuck with forever

A recent interview I saw with CC, he talked about not giving out contracts that are basically untradeable the second they are signed.

It's in the best interest of the player too. I'd imagine Huberdeau would welcome a change of scenery right now but because he signed that albatross deal he and the Flames are stuck with each other.

[devo22]

It looks like a complete tear-down and I'm absolutely here for it. Over the next year, trade guys like Kuzmenko and Andersson as well. Weaponize cap space and take on bad deals for futures. Go and load up on as many picks and prospects as you can.

I know, easy for me to say, being an overseas fan. I get that you still need to fill seats and so on ... but I'm tired of the mediocrity. This franchise has never drafted in the top 3 and only once in the top 5. That is absolutely crazy and I'm fine if that changes. Might as well go to the well a couple of times.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by 1qqaaz

The Flames didn't draft a franchise center in their last rebuild. They only had one top 5 pick. Not putting all the blame on Bennett, but without him succeeding, there was almost going to be somewhat limited playoff success.

The Flames also failed to draft/develop an elite goalie. But this is tough to criticize, because there's no way to reliably do this. Personally, I believe the problem here has been more with development than with drafting.
But these goalies are largely what end rebuilds. The Rangers got Shesterkin. Tampa got Vasilevsky. Pittsburgh got MAF back in the day. And Washington became a goalie factory in general.

Gaudreau emerged as a bit of a unicorn, in that he did a lot of the centre work, but just wasn't big enough to play centre himself. Bennett didn't become a 1st line centre, but he became an almost ideal second line playoff centre.

The Flames had the talent, but lots of other things went wrong. It's a fine line in the NHL betweeen success and failure.

[blankall]

It's not a rebuild.....it's just a multi year period where the Flames have traded away most of their roster and will be awful and get really high draft picks. Then then after that hopefully they will rebuilllll....change the roster so that the team is better and starts to compete after several years of rebuilllll....acquiring high end draft picks and development.

Unless the Flames get the #1 pick in 2025 and draft a franchise level centre, the rebuild is almost certainly going to last multiple years, and by then all of the remaining existing vets, but Huberdeau probably, will be gone. That's a rebuild. Saying I hope we draft a franchise altering draft pick right away so it's more of a retool is just wishful thinking. It's the same thing.

Seriously though, I think the Flames could rebuild rather quickly. I really like their depth prospects (Zary, Pelletier, Pospisil etc...), and hopefully one of them takes a big step forward. They could potentially have the future goalie issue solved in Wolf. A lot of teams burn several years post-rebuild trying to solidify things in goal.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy

A recent interview I saw with CC, he talked about not giving out contracts that are basically untradeable the second they are signed.

It's in the best interest of the player too. I'd imagine Huberdeau would welcome a change of scenery right now but because he signed that albatross deal he and the Flames are stuck with each other.

Huberdeau forced that deal too. His "best interest" was attaining a big pile of money. I do think fans get a bit cynical about the economic side. A player like Huberdeau was likely to get one chance to cash out. At his age, he wasn't signing a 4-5 year deal and then re-signing another good contract after that.

He was coming off as season where he'd set the NHL record for most assists by a LW. It was his time to cash in. His likely only time.