I'll never understand how people can say "look at Edmonton" as a way we should build the team.
They literally drafted 5 times 1st OA in a decade and then lotter lucked their way to McDavid and somehow we need to emulate that for success.
Florida Got Huberdeau 3rd, then then Barkov 2nd and Ekblad 1st in 4 years.
Again, lottery luck. Flames have none.
But okay I guess. Sign me up!
Trust me, I want a top 3 pick as much as the next guy. But its never guaranteed and with our luck we'd find a way to have the best odds and still get screwed.
You won’t get much luck finishing 9th.
We did go 6-4-15-6 what we got 15 it was time to compete and trade multiple picks. The following season proved it was a fluke.
Oilers went through a decade of fumbling in the dark and the only thing that brought them out of it was McDavid. Otherwise they'd be Buffalo west right now.
There are more examples of bottoming out going wrong than going right.
And one of the teams you're referring to broke the lottery system, and how they got their talent can't be replicated today under the current rules.
I like the winning culture + accruing futures approach we have going currently. We're 1.5 years into implementing this new philosophy. I think we need to give it and Conroy 5 years of runway to work with to try to attain some results.
What the Flames are doing now is NOT what they were doing for 20+ years prior to it. And it's silly that some regular posters can't seem to see that distinction.
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It's pretty ironic to try and use either team as an example.
There are dozens of articles about the culture changing in Florida over the past few years. Tkachuk is a player credited with changing the culture. They drafted 1st and 2nd overall and then continued to suck for 7 years, until they made a conscious effort to change the culture.
Winning didn't overcome the loser culture in Edmonton and turn the team around, drafting a player in the conversation with Gretzky and Lemieux did. The difference in what culture the teams have created was clearly evident in last night's game.
Tkachuk is/was an elite player. That's the point. They didn't overpay some veteran to instill a culture into the team, they cast off their ineffective talent for an effective talent.
The Oilers will always have a loser culture but they have 2 guys elite enough to almost overcome it.
Good players win.
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A few weeks after crashing head-first into the boards (denting his helmet and being unable to move for a little while) following a hit from behind by Bob Errey, the Calgary Flames player explains:
"I was like Christ, lying on my back, with my arms outstretched, crucified"
-- Frank Musil - Early January 1994
Yes, Florida and Edmonton, the two teams that drafted elite talent and then had to ship them out and cycle through coaches because they had culture problems lol. Throw Colorado in there as well. And ask Buffalo how amazing their culture is with all the elite talent they’ve drafted lol.
Maybe think about your take before rushing to spew it out.
Florida wasn’t a culture problem. They won a presidents trophy. The issue was style. That’s why they got Maurice and different style of players. Vito clearly read that right.
Tkachuk is/was an elite player. That's the point. They didn't overpay some veteran to instill a culture into the team, they cast off their ineffective talent for an effective talent.
The Oilers will always have a loser culture but they have 2 guys elite enough to almost overcome it.
Good players win.
It wasn’t a culture change. It was on ice change. Sure Chucky s was allowed to be himself but that of what they wanted to do. Remodel now their team played.
Maurice was brought into get them to play that way.
Point taken but it seems unrealistic. Stuff comes up in any thread, especially rumors, that lends to direction of the team and that’s pretty normal. Like it or not, this kind of existential “what are we?” conundrum captures a crossroads of the franchise right now. And it’s the offseason, with the only hockey to talk otherwise being the Oilers.
Again, fine for threads to go off topic, all good. But let’s not pretend this specific off topic theme is novel or particularly of the moment or that anyone is offering up some evolved views on the matter that makes it interesting to anyone other than those people seeking validation.
The fact that this is so far removed from being unique or capturing the moment is why it could sustain its own ongoing thread. And it might discourage people from just repeating themselves over and over to feed the ego when they click into the thread and see that they just made that point a day ago.
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Tkachuk is/was an elite player. That's the point. They didn't overpay some veteran to instill a culture into the team, they cast off their ineffective talent for an effective talent.
The Oilers will always have a loser culture but they have 2 guys elite enough to almost overcome it.
Good players win.
The Panthers had a few players who underachieved every playoffs. They were traded to the Flames. Huberdeau and Weegar were their worst players every playoffs!
We gave them Tkachuk who we were convinced couldn't get it done here and he helped change their culture. He's also like you said an elite winger when healthy. We also gifted them another good center who turns into a borderline elite player come playoff time. And we traded him for Toppi Ronni who is currently in jail.
Yet some people are preaching here about winning culture lol. Give me a break!
Florida wasn’t a culture problem. They won a presidents trophy. The issue was style. That’s why they got Maurice and different style of players. Vito clearly read that right.
Zito literally talked about a culture reset after he was hired in 2020. He clearly did read it right: a culture problem.
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Tkachuk is/was an elite player. That's the point. They didn't overpay some veteran to instill a culture into the team, they cast off their ineffective talent for an effective talent.
The Oilers will always have a loser culture but they have 2 guys elite enough to almost overcome it.
Good players win.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
Zito literally talked about a culture reset after he was hired in 2020. He clearly did read it right: a culture problem.
Yeah and they won the presidents trophy brought in coach Q. They kept getting slapped by Tampa and changed the type of players and system. They would have sent more guys packing no?
The Panthers had a few players who underachieved every playoffs. They were traded to the Flames. Huberdeau and Weegar were their worst players every playoffs!
We gave them Tkachuk who we were convinced couldn't get it done here and he helped change their culture. He's also like you said an elite winger when healthy. We also gifted them another good center who turns into a borderline elite player come playoff time. And we traded him for Toppi Ronni who is currently in jail.
Yet some people are preaching here about winning culture lol. Give me a break!
People here are talking about the process of building a winning culture, over time, and how basic things like respecting contract clauses can impact culture. Meanwhile, you’re stamping your feet and talking about Toppi Ronni.
Don’t wait for someone to give you a break, take a permanent one. You’re embarrassing yourself.
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In a recent article, Kent Wilson had some pretty good points about the state of the Flames retool, he then discussed it on Flames Nation's In The Dome:
The Flames have 3 cohorts: veterans (29+ year olds), prime (22-27 year olds), and prospects (21 and under)
A contending team needs to be gaining most of its production, and spend most of its cap on the prime group.
Calgary spent 71% of its cap, and got 62% of its points from the veterans, while giving them 58% of the ice-time.
There are still a lot of 32, 34, 36,33 year-olds on the team, despite Conroy trading a large part of the previous core.
CGY's average age is the same as Dallas and Colorado, teams at the peak of their contention window.
CGY's veteran cohort is going to suffer through attrition in the next 3–5 years, and they're going to get worse. If they keep Andersson they're going to get even more expansive.
No matter what happens, the veteran cohort needs to be liquidated.
Prime group: Wolf (pillar), Coronato (top 6, 20-30 scorer), Zary (injuries), Bahl (top 4), Sharangovich (step-back), Frost (struggle), Farabee (struggle)
The problem for the Flames is that you can't incrementally improve the middle rotation and get them to the next level. They need elite level talent so that everyone slots better.
He understands Conroy's point that you can't just throw away an entire season if you decide to rebuild, that you needed the veterans to instill the culture, because a team is not built on a spreadsheet, but he also pushes back on it:
culture has to be transmissible
If it just makes you keep the veterans around for fear of losing said culture, then it's really not that valuable
It's Parekh's cohort of 20-year-olds that might turn into this team's contention cohort when they're at their prime, the current vets likely won't be here for that, and no one is going to remember this team 10 years down the road.
Wolf makes bottoming out harder, he either came in 5 years too early, or 5 years too late.
CGY's trying to not be bad instead of just trying to be great, while the NHL's system rewards teams that are terrible. Which leads to constantly being in the middle of the pack.
The only way to get out of the middle without being bad, is to get extremely lucky with picks like Gaudreau and Kucherov in the later rounds, which come around once in a decade.
You get about 10 stars per draft, even fewer superstars. The chances of getting franchise defining talent outside the top 10 are extremely slim as a result.
Getting 3 stars in a draft like Dallas did is not a model, if the Flames could do that, they would've done that already. Kudos to Dallas for both finding those guys, and developing them properly.
Making incremental improvements to a roster technically bring you closer to winning the cup, but attempting to make the team the best possible team in a future 5-year window is a much better approach.
The Flames have accelerated a little too quickly out of the previous rebuild when they found out Gaudreau was a star. It combined with some bad luck like the Monahan injuries.
The Flames missed an opportunity to start a rebuild once Tkachuk and Gaudreau had to move on. Now because of that they're stuck in a weird no-man's-land.
Personally, I really liked how he discussed culture, and I think that the younger players should be able to keep the culture going even once the likes of Andersson, Backlund, Coleman and Kadri are gone. That's one of the reasons I was pretty disappointed that the Flames didn't even approach Kadri with Colorado's offer(per Royale). Hopefully, this year the likes of Zary, Coronato, Sharangovich, Pospisil, Klapka, Frost and Farabee begin setting their own culture even after we move a couple of the 6 vets.
The same good points regarding a rebuild, and I'll be honest he did a very good job of selling me on it. We'll see where this organization will be headed. Hopefully they find a way to become a contender in my lifetime.
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The Panthers had a few players who underachieved every playoffs. They were traded to the Flames. Huberdeau and Weegar were their worst players every playoffs!
We gave them Tkachuk who we were convinced couldn't get it done here and he helped change their culture. He's also like you said an elite winger when healthy. We also gifted them another good center who turns into a borderline elite player come playoff time. And we traded him for Toppi Ronni who is currently in jail.
Yet some people are preaching here about winning culture lol. Give me a break!
Which ‘we’ are you referring to when you make this claim? Are you talking about the Flames or ‘we’ the fans? And are you speaking on all fans behalf? What evidence do you have that the Flames felt Tkachuk ‘couldn’t get it done’?
I think you have a wild imagination, my friend.
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Zito literally talked about a culture reset after he was hired in 2020. He clearly did read it right: a culture problem.
Get the star players, sure there will be some risk and maybe at some point you will need to fix the culture. Evidence shows that most teams that win the cup get a couple high end picks. Fix the culture seems easier than getting McDavid types 13th OV.
I do think that at some point we will be at the bottom though. 2026 draft isn't the last draft either, as young guys come in some will not be as good as expected and there could be some seasons where on paper we look like Buffalo and play like Buffalo.
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Get the star players, sure there will be some risk and maybe at some point you will need to fix the culture. Evidence shows that most teams that win the cup get a couple high end picks. Fix the culture seems easier than getting McDavid types 13th OV.
I do think that at some point we will be at the bottom though. 2026 draft isn't the last draft either, as young guys come in some will not be as good as expected and there could be some seasons where on paper we look like Buffalo and play like Buffalo.
Most teams that don’t win the cup also have a couple high end picks.
Tkachuk is/was an elite player. That's the point. They didn't overpay some veteran to instill a culture into the team, they cast off their ineffective talent for an effective talent.
The Oilers will always have a loser culture but they have 2 guys elite enough to almost overcome it.
Good players win.
Eichel and Reinhart were the 2 players drafted in Buffalo the years McDavid and Draisaitl were drafted by the Oilers. They couldn’t get Buffalo to win unlike McDavid and Drai in Edmonton but Eichel and Reinhart are both key players on teams that won the cup. They are good players who won but they couldn’t do it in Buffalo.
I don't know why we always talk about this given that are basically no examples of a team embracing a full multi-year tank and going on to actually win the cup. Of the last 10 winners, excepting St. Louis and Vegas as outliers, all acquired elite talent because of incompetence and luck. Chicago, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Colorado, Florida were all trying to win and be competitive during the years they drafted high. They just sucked at it. And won lotteries. It's really not that complicated. You need to get recognize when you are unlucky and try to maximize your chances at getting lucky.
The key is recognizing when it's not your year because of injuries or chemistry or whatever and letting the team drop in the standings. I agree that this is a mistake that Calgary has made several times. But each year you should be trying to ice a competitive team.
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