Wolf has been great the last 2 games. Team wasn't great in front of him last night though. If Wolf keeps this up this team will win more than it loses. The team in front of him has a lot of holes but a great goaltender covers some of that up, ala Kipper.
The management team needs to be honest with this team though. Even IF they turn this around and even IF they find a way to challenge for a playoff spot by the end of the year, this team isn't going to contend for a cup. UFAs should still be traded and guys like Kadri and/or Coleman should be moved IF the packages are right.
I'll never cheer for losses and you can't expect that locker room to purposely try and lose. Once stuff like that happens this team is in trouble and really will be 5+ years away from being good. I think they got something cooking here. Some players are really starting to look like gamers and with the right moves this team could be very competitive in a couple seasons.
I understand the want for a high draft pick. I think part of the issue is this team is long overdue for some changes and it's driving some people absolutely batty. Just keep in mind this team can finish bottom 5 and not draft top 4, or it could finish bottom 10 and draft 1st overall. All of these things are out of our control so let's just enjoy the wins when we get them and enjoy that losses aren't heartbreaking in a season like this. As flames fans we have a win/win situation
Let the young players continue to develop into impactful players. If Wolf, Coronato, Zary, Parekh and Gridin are helping this team win a bunch at the end of the season, so be it. If Wolf studs into a superstar now and it costs you a top 3 pick i think you take that. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush and all.
Hopefully the team moves out some vets to make room for some young players, and then the season will play out how it plays out. I hope they get a top 4 pick, like really hope, but if it doesn't happen it doesn't happen. It's not worth complaining about for the next 6 months.
There's more than 1 way to skin a cat. Lots of talk about following the Dallas model, but I find the Bruins 2010s model to be more interesting. When they won the cup their best players were homegrown (Lucic, Marchand, Bergeron) but none were top picks. They had traded their franchise player and 1st overall pick Jumbo Joe about 5 years prior and had not a lot to show for it. They also fell butt first into Seguin 2nd overall and was a rookie on their cup team, and would ultimately trade him not long after for....also not a lot. But they were competitive for a big window, fought for cups and won one. Ultimately that franchise did it by drafting well ALL over the draft. Flames just need to focus on what they can control, making their picks count and developing their guys. Everything else is just noise.
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We are pretty much screwed unless Conroy does something, and fast. This is the nightmare scenario unfolding.
You don't see this as over the top at all?
screwed
fast
nightmare scenario
The Flames aren't the first team to be in a season with a poor record, assets to sell, a bump in their play ... but the need to wait until the market established.
Take a beat son.
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Wolf has been great the last 2 games. Team wasn't great in front of him last night though. If Wolf keeps this up this team will win more than it loses. The team in front of him has a lot of holes but a great goaltender covers some of that up, ala Kipper.
The management team needs to be honest with this team though. Even IF they turn this around and even IF they find a way to challenge for a playoff spot by the end of the year, this team isn't going to contend for a cup. UFAs should still be traded and guys like Kadri and/or Coleman should be moved IF the packages are right.
I'll never cheer for losses and you can't expect that locker room to purposely try and lose. Once stuff like that happens this team is in trouble and really will be 5+ years away from being good. I think they got something cooking here. Some players are really starting to look like gamers and with the right moves this team could be very competitive in a couple seasons.
I understand the want for a high draft pick. I think part of the issue is this team is long overdue for some changes and it's driving some people absolutely batty. Just keep in mind this team can finish bottom 5 and not draft top 4, or it could finish bottom 10 and draft 1st overall. All of these things are out of our control so let's just enjoy the wins when we get them and enjoy that losses aren't heartbreaking in a season like this. As flames fans we have a win/win situation
Let the young players continue to develop into impactful players. If Wolf, Coronato, Zary, Parekh and Gridin are helping this team win a bunch at the end of the season, so be it. If Wolf studs into a superstar now and it costs you a top 3 pick i think you take that. A bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush and all.
Hopefully the team moves out some vets to make room for some young players, and then the season will play out how it plays out. I hope they get a top 4 pick, like really hope, but if it doesn't happen it doesn't happen. It's not worth complaining about for the next 6 months.
There's more than 1 way to skin a cat. Lots of talk about following the Dallas model, but I find the Bruins 2010s model to be more interesting. When they won the cup their best players were homegrown (Lucic, Marchand, Bergeron) but none were top picks. They had traded their franchise player and 1st overall pick Jumbo Joe about 5 years prior and had not a lot to show for it. They also fell butt first into Seguin 2nd overall and was a rookie on their cup team, and would ultimately trade him not long after for....also not a lot. But they were competitive for a big window, fought for cups and won one. Ultimately that franchise did it by drafting well ALL over the draft. Flames just need to focus on what they can control, making their picks count and developing their guys. Everything else is just noise.
Amen! I like that the Flames have never bottomed out into an embarrassingly bad team year after year and do believe hockey gods reward those teams too. Conroy and his staff have given me every reason to believe a full tank strategy isn’t necessary and that the competitive culture they’re maintaining now will reap success sooner than a possible ‘lost decade’ if tanking was embraced. As a fan and still (very) amateur (barely) competitive athlete I hold my teammates to a higher standard than strategic lameness. I’m happy to see this years Flames battling back some respectability and will be cheering individual and team successes.
We are pretty much screwed unless Conroy does something, and fast. This is the nightmare scenario unfolding.
I highly recommend you go and cheer for the Buffalo Sabres if you want to cheer for losses and a perpetual rebuild. I get the Flames are likely playing themselves out of grabbing McKenna/Stenberg, but at the same time our scouts have done so well it does not matter where we draft. Reschny looks like a 1C in the making, and guess where we got him? 18th overall.
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Finally some separation on last. 0.004 winning percentage better.
Who do you guys want to add at the deadline? We could probably get in on Tavares when the Leafs sell.
I've been pleased with the effort and progress by a lot of players on the team over the last few weeks. Who would you like to see regress or get injured to possibly get a better draft pick? Maybe get Wolf's GAA up over 4?
I highly recommend you go and cheer for the Buffalo Sabres if you want to cheer for losses and a perpetual rebuild. I get the Flames are likely playing themselves out of grabbing McKenna/Stenberg, but at the same time our scouts have done so well it does not matter where we draft. Reschny looks like a 1C in the making, and guess where we got him? 18th overall.
I get this opinion and the Flames seem to be drafting well. However, there is a big difference between Reschny and Schaefer or Honzek and Bedard/Smith/Carlsson
And where did NYI finish in standings to get Schaefer? The year Bedard was drafted, the bottom 4 teams were within 2 points of each other. Drafting top 3 isn’t something you can just do, all we can do is give ourselves a chance and I think they’ve done that. When you think about it, it’s no different than the “Just make it in” philosophy that people use against management.
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And where did NYI finish in standings to get Schaefer? The year Bedard was drafted, the bottom 4 teams were within 2 points of each other. Drafting top 3 isn’t something you can just do, all we can do is give ourselves a chance and I think they’ve done that. When you think about it, it’s no different than the “Just make it in” philosophy that people use against management.
It's really not easy to finish at the bottom short of actually throwing games. Especially when you play in a weak division like the Pacific.
I'm not taking the Rhett44 doom & gloom perspective. But I can't quite agree with your assessment either. The way I see it, for the Flames to successfully rebuild within a few years, they'll need Wolf to blossom into a star AND they need a top pick in the upcoming draft. Not getting an elite player from this draft will set things back by quite a bit.
Having a good scouting staff is a great thing and will help speed up the rebuild. But taking the leap from that to "therefore it doesn't matter where we draft" is fallacious and wrong.
In a year where MacKinnon, Celebrini, Bedard, Schaefer, Crosby, Ovechkin, Malkin, McDavid are ripping up the league (and others like Kane, Tavares, Matthews, Hughes, Hischier at around a point per game), it's rather surprising to me to hear people say it doesn't matter where we draft.
As for the lotto taking some control away from us as far as where we actually draft, that is true, however, you're ignoring that finishing lower gives better odds, and finishing outside the bottom 10 means no chance at the #1 pick at all. These are important considerations that shouldn't be ignored.
And worst of all, the people screaming about Buffalo. This one gets on my nerves more than anything because no matter how many times it's explained that one example of a failed rebuild doesn't make the concept of rebuilding bad, people continue to moronically scream BUFFALO BUFFALO BUFFALO as if it's some kind of magic trick to instantly win an argument. It isn't. It's the furthest thing from it.
The only thing Buffalo proves is that if you have bad scouting, bad management, bad development, bad roster construction, and coaching that doesn't know how to help young players grow their game at the NHL level, you're going to be spinning your wheels forever. The Flames don't have these problems. The problem the Flames have is lack of elite talent. The most reliable way to get it is at the top of the draft.
As for the Boston model, while yes it's possible that a team can be built like that, there's a reason why that's the rare exception and not the rule. You can get franchise altering pieces outside of the top of the draft, but it's hard to identify them with such limited information about what they'll likely become in the future. If it was as easy as you make it sound, everyone would be doing it. And FWIW, that 2011 Bruins team had Nathan Horton as a key contributor, a 3OA pick.
No one is arguing that the players should lose on purpose. Not sure why you're even bringing that up, as no one has suggested it. The only argument here is trade guys like Andersson & Kadri to reduce the roster talent and stock up on futures, to make a top 3 pick much more likely.
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Last edited by Mathgod; 12-07-2025 at 04:59 PM.
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We'll have a much better sense of the roster and where we stand heading in to the home stretch in 9 weeks once the Olympic roster freeze is on. 9 weeks will come and go before we know it. Hang in there, everyone.
And where did NYI finish in standings to get Schaefer? The year Bedard was drafted, the bottom 4 teams were within 2 points of each other. Drafting top 3 isn’t something you can just do, all we can do is give ourselves a chance and I think they’ve done that. When you think about it, it’s no different than the “Just make it in” philosophy that people use against management.
The Islanders had a 3.5% chance of winning the lottery.
The Flames, a team that has never won a lottery, probably shouldn't rely on this kind of luck.
Drafting top 3 is absolutely something a team can just do. See every cup winning team other than the Blues.
The Islanders had a 3.5% chance of winning the lottery.
The Flames, a team that has never won a lottery, probably shouldn't rely on this kind of luck.
Drafting top 3 is absolutely something a team can just do. See every cup winning team other than the Blues.
You forgot Vegas. And Anaheim. And Boston drafted Seguin in 2010 they'd traded Kessel for that pick and won the cup the next season - not really a rebuild.
Florida and TB did indeed draft top 3, but it was 10 years before they won a cup (well, TB did draft Drouin in 2013 but he had nothing to do with their win). And Florida had only something like 3 drafted players on their cup winning roster. I'd argue that while their bottoming out got them good players, it was stuff they did much later on that won cups.
I highly recommend you go and cheer for the Buffalo Sabres if you want to cheer for losses and a perpetual rebuild. I get the Flames are likely playing themselves out of grabbing McKenna/Stenberg, but at the same time our scouts have done so well it does not matter where we draft. Reschny looks like a 1C in the making, and guess where we got him? 18th overall.
Flames fans are allowed to cheer however they like to.
You guys gatekeeping on what's fan-like and what isn't is what's lame.
We've had 30+ years of having it that way. Wanting something different for one season that we happened to actually sit last place in for the first two months isn't an affront on fandom.
The intolerance and mockery of it seems like the behavior of fans who've gone stockholm syndrome for mediocrity.
You don't want something top-end in this organization, ever?
Reschny et al currently in the pipeline might be good, but they won't be what you get at the top of the draft.
Some of us would like great for once, not just good.
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Fire Huska! Seriously, that's too much exceeding expectations here Huska! That should flatline the team, right? I am only joking here of course - heck, maybe the new coach brings with him a coaching bump too, right? Either way, you can't be on team 'criticize Huska' while ignoring him as a part of this teams' success now.
Back to the serious conversation at hand - Conroy can't allow this team to rise up in the standings too high. It really takes a season-long commitment to tank. If the Flames get too high, better to sell a player at a reduced cost, or the value difference in the Flames' own pick will be too large. That's the most important piece this season, and it isn't even close. You can't sell everyone at the highest price, and add all of those assets to the Vegas pick and expect to get the #1, 2 or 3 overall pick. You can't add it to the 16th overall pick either.
Still too early to panic, but at some point, this is something that Conroy MAY need to do - sell one of the players on the cheap side well ahead of the deadline to ensure that this team doesn't exceed expectations. The loss of value in that trade is NOTHING compared to the difference in value between the 1st pick and the 5th pick. I bet you can't trade Rasmus' entire return + the 5th pick for the 1st pick.
The best comparison was actually the 2013 draft here. MacKinnon had a bit of a disappointing season, and was down to 3rd on most lists. Feaster made an offer of the 6th, 22nd and 28th picks for 1st, and was rejected.
2012 (I had to look this one up as I couldn't remember which year) the Islanders offered to trade all their picks to move up from 4 to 2. Those picks were: 4, 34, 65, 103, 125, 155 and 185. I think it sounded 'bigger' than it was really, but then again, that's only trying to move up 2 spots. Terrible draft, and one of the rare drafts in which many of the middle of the first round players became the best players from that draft,
Point is, Flames should be all about value in this draft, and if they are creeping up too high than it is probably worth selling an asset at a depressed price sooner than waiting for the market to mature. If Vancouver sells Hughes, that team will tank hard too. If Nashville unloads a couple of players, they will tank hard too. Flames must stay in range. Still too early to panic, but something that Conroy must keep his eye on. The Flames don't need another noble pat on the back for exceeding expectations on a lost season. They need an injection of a superstar (or a few!).
