[PGT] Sharks 7 Flames 4

[Strange Brew]

Trades are fine. But you need both the courage and ability to evaluate talent to trade some roster players and prospects and not always your top draft picks.

[CalgaryFan1988]

Originally Posted by stang

I like the question. Even though I know the answer.

Would you rather Oilers get number 1 pick and Flames pick they gave the Islander ends up at 14...or
Flames end up giving the Islanders the number 1 pick and the Oilers get 10

I'd rather give the oilers the number one, cause they will #### it up anyways.

[Fan in Exile]

Originally Posted by VANFLAMESFAN

It more than likely is. if I were a betting man, I would certainly wouldn't put money on them to win.

But if you believe 96 points can get you in the playoffs, then a 8-2 record, while extremely difficult would be enough to see them in. That's just math.

they have gone on a 8-2 run before. I don't think it's impossible for it to happen again. It's just extremely unlikely.

All they can do is worry about Sunday right now.

I really don't even think 96 points would do it this year. Even if the Flames could get there, do you really think two out of three of Colorado, Anaheim and Dallas won't get at least 12 points in 10 games (11 for Colorado)?

[Corral]

At this point it seems easier to just focus on pacific seed #3 and hope we catch either the Kings or the Ducks. It just seems more probable than a wildcard, and has seemed so for quite a few weeks now.

[Yoho]

Originally Posted by Corral

At this point it seems easier to just focus on pacific seed #3 and hope we catch either the Kings or the Ducks. It just seems more probable than a wildcard, and has seemed so for quite a few weeks now.

Given this roster we are taking on the road, Elvis has a better chance of coming back.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by IamNotKenKing

I am not sure I agree with this.
I think the best course of action is to build all three ways:
1) Draft and develop;
2) Trade for controlled players;
3) Sign UFAs.

In that order.

Suggesting the Flames are taking shortcuts is not true, in my opinion.

The Flames draft with the frequency usually reserved for teams in the midst of competing for or already having won the cup. They draft less than their rebuilding peers. They draft less frequently in the top 45-60 than their peers. Until the Monahan draft, i believe the Flames were the only organization in the league besides Dallas to not have made 3 picks in the first round in a single draft.

The Flames draft worse, and less often than their peers. So, they aren't even doing #1 on your list properly.

Now, the debate is whether the trades were right or wrong, but you cannot 100% build through the draft. You need a bit of each one.

Drafting dictates the quality of trades you can make and the quality of UFAs you can sign.

Good drafting gives you more valuable assets than just draft picks that allow you to move those more valuable assets to beat out other teams offering picks or lesser assets. The larger your stable of tradeable assets, the better your organization will be able to capitalize on trades. The Flames basically never have prospects they are willing to move because they have so few of them in the first place, which means they have to move picks. This helps the cycle bottom out and forces the flames to compete with higher volume of picks than a lower volume of better assets. The package that gets Hamilton is not the package that gets Seth Jones. Johansen is what gets Seth Jones. The Flames rarely move out roster players for picks, further bottoming out the cycle.

In a perfect world your drafted players mature over time.
Here we have the young core of Monahan, Johnny, Tkachuk, Bennett and Ferland, with Brodie, Backlund and Kulak also home grown, and providing benefit (I know, Brodie is debatable here). Jankowski looks like he will be a good homegrown pick as well. That is 9 by my count. Gio is really homegrown as well, despite not being drafted at all.

First and foremost, no, Giordano does not count and proves the opposite of what you're trying to suggest. Winning a grand slam homerun with Giordano as an unsigned free agent doesn't count as example of Flames drafting. He count as an example of just how terrible this team would be if they could only rely on their drafting. One of the team's best players, maybe THE best, was a stroke of luck unrelated to the draft. Full credit to the player for turning himself into a premiere player in the league, but you don't get to count Giordano unless you're willing to count also losing out Martin St.Louis.

The rest of your list is just a list of players. Every team has players they've drafted on the roster. San Jose drafted Chris Tierney in the second round, 55th overall and he's 14th in his draft class for points. That's the Janko draft, btw.

So, while we're all very excited that the Janko draft pick looks like it might be panning out, Janko has ~200 less career games and ~80 less points. So, ya, really great that Janko is actually a warm enough body he can make the roster, but basically every single team in the league has a player as good or better from that draft in their lineup right now.

We then supplement with trades like Dougie and Hamonic, who were both on decent contracts, and are young, which is wise and beneficial if you think your team is at the right place in its progression. I know this is debatable also, but I really think most expected we would be better this year, and that Hamonic would help that progression. What we did not do, and what would be foolish, would be trading 1st round picks for aging players, in the hopes that would push us over the top.

The Hamilton and Hamonic trades happen as a direct result of the poor drafting by the Flames. They had an established core group of forwards who looked to be the lead horses on the roster, but without any prospects on the horizon of even close to the same tier. This is unsurprising when you look at their draft history. In the 5 drafts between the Backlund draft and the Monahan draft, the Flames drafted 4 times in round 1, only drafting before pick#20 in the Baertschi selection (13th overall). Their highest 2nd rounder in that span was 42nd overall. Of course, the Flames didn't make a 1st or 2nd round selection in 2010 (whoops!). Considering the flames only won a handful of playoff games over that entire stretch, that's really bad. But what's worse is how infrequently they picked defenders. Only 2 picks for defenders in the first 2 rounds over those 5 drafts.

So the Flames had assembled a car with an amazing engine but didn't realize until they were about to start the race that they didn't have any tires. They had to go out and buy them with draft picks. It's hard to understate how significant a setback not having any qualified young defenders in the system until now has had on the ability of this roster to win games while the forward group are in their prime point producing years.

A 15th overall pick has a 41.7% chance of playing 100 NHL games and a 16.7% chance of being a top 6 forward or top 4 defenseman. Dougie was already better than that.

This argument is so tiresome. The value of the draft pick is not measured only in games played, it's measured in the flexibility of assets and in the near immeasurable impact of getting top end players and how they drive an entire franchise's success during their tenure with the team.

Al MacInnis and Mike Vernon have a combined ~2200 games in the NHL. 1st and 3rd rounder.

Dan Quinn, Brian Bradley and Perry Berezan have a combined ~2200 games in the NHL. 1st, 3rd and 3rd rounder.

Which was the better draft? Which was more important to the Flames fielding a cup winner?

This is the most maddening part for me. The Flames are their OWN blueprint for success but refuse to follow it. David Poile is the winningest general manager in league history and he was sitting at that draft table as assistant GM when the Flames made their best draft pick of all time.

[tvp2003]

Originally Posted by Corral

At this point it seems easier to just focus on pacific seed #3 and hope we catch either the Kings or the Ducks. It just seems more probable than a wildcard, and has seemed so for quite a few weeks now.

Setting up a first round matchup against... Evander Kane and the Sharks.

Seems like a lot of work for two playoff home games

[VladtheImpaler]

Thanks, FW - I was too lazy to write that. We had/won this argument nigh 10 years ago - I should try to cut & paste the posts from back then...

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

Thanks, FW - I was too lazy to write that. We had/won this argument nigh 10 years ago - I should try to cut & paste the posts from back then...

[Beninho]

Originally Posted by Hackey

Hamonic was signed for 3 years at a 3.75 million dollar cap hit. That gave the Flames a solid top 4 dman during their window to win. That mid round first likely isn't even playing over those 3 years or likely isn't making a huge difference. There's a chance he never amounts to anything. You are far more likely to have Hamonic making an impact on the club than whoever that pick is. This idea that they have to be a cup contender makes no sense. He had 3 years on his deal and could grow with the team. You really think this mid first we are missing out on was gonna be the savior to turn this team around? I fully agree it sucks not having a first this year but in the big scheme of things it's likely not changing all that much. If we got a player as good as Hamonic with that pick we would be thrilled.

Gambling with first and 2nd round picks is gonna get you burned in the long run, especially when your team is barely proven. History has shown that shipping out draft picks, especially first and seconds will come back to haunt you. It already seems that way with the second for Elliott, that pick was used to get Jordan Kyrou... look at the Preds getting Tolvanen at 30. Just not a good strategy by Treliving. There will probably be multiple players in this coming draft that we will all bitch and moan about not drafting. The two seconds on top of the first for Hamonic is just an extra punch to the gut.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Beninho

Gambling with first and 2nd round picks is gonna get you burned in the long run, especially when your team is barely proven. History has proven that shipping out draft picks, especially first and seconds will come back to haunt you. It already seems that way with the second for Elliott, that pick was used to get Jordan Kyrou... look at the Preds getting Tolvanen at 30. Just not a good strategy by Treliving

We agree that firsts should be protected and rarely dealt. But 2nds are actually good currency in terms of the quality of player you can get relative to the chances you hit with the pick. That's why they get dealt so much.
My observation would be that a healthy approach to the draft should be
- Rarely trade your first
- Make sure you have enough bullets in the chamber from the 2nd on.

Looking back and cherry picking solid 2nd round picks isn't a good way of looking at the benefits and risks of those picks. The value should be based on the overall chances of landing a quality player with that pick.

[tkflames]

I appreciate those that are still optimistic in this thread. It makes for much better reading and quite honestly that optimism and positive attitude will take you far in life.

Unfortunately, I have not been able to find my own for this year's Flames team. Dallas has managed to win 3 games in their last 10 games and yet have one more point than us in that stretch.

[Travis Munroe]

I still have no issues with Tre. Has he made some questionable moves, yea but the Hamonic trade is not one of them. It's easy to kick back at this point in the season and point fingers but let's be honest and look back at the trade thread when we picked him up. Next to nobody was complaining and we most likely kepts Hamonic from being an Oiler and upgrading that garbage team.
Let's also review the expectations for this team thread. Almost everyone expected us to be a playoff team without much struggle.
Tre is still human and if 99% of CP was a GM, we most likely pull the trigger on that trade as well without any concern of what the pick would become as it should be a 20th + overall selection. Why not lottery protect the pick? What if it meant no deal? We act as if he is an idiot for not protecting it as if nobody was on the other end saying what they wanted.... I am sure he tried and if he didn't then its a big mistake.

My only real complaint with Tre is holding onto GG as long as he has however even that can be explained if he intends on going after an elite coach this summer. It would be pretty tough to bring in a interim coach and see the team succeed or just make it into the playoffs and then fire that coach for your sought-after guy.
The one thing there is no excuse for is how Cameron still has a job. If there is one area to point the finger at not making playoffs, it isn't any individual or combination or players, it isn't GG, it isn't goaltending, it's our PP. I have no idea what the numbers are but I am guessing we are a bottom 5 team when it comes to taking advantage of 5-3 PPs and I don't think anyone makes the playoffs with that sort of stat line.

[Shazam]

Every team gets draft picks. For free. If you have an NHL team, you get draft picks for free. Free.

Yup, it's a lottery. But you're not paying for the tickets.

If you could play the lottery for free every week, what you do?

The draft is even better than the lottery, since it's only sorta random. Having smart people in the right positions... And this is where the Calgary Flames fail.

[Manhattanboy]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Out of curiosity would you care to elaborate? It would be nice to know how they are feeling about the debacle of this season.

Chatted generally with three of them who were there. Nothing specific re the team. Mood was pretty down in the third. The feeling was that was a game we really needed.

[FBI]

Just watched the highlights.
Man those were some sh!!!ty a$ goals by Smith. Elliott specials there.

Can't force myself to watch this toilet bowl of a team live right now.

I'll still cheer for a miracle but I can't wait till the coaches are gone.

[Hackey]

Obviously you need to build through the draft but I think there are numerous things you need to factor in when building a team. As your team progresses certain players are going to decline because of age, certain players are going to need salary increases, other players are going to leave for free agency. There are so many variables. And you need to consider how do you replace or supplement these things along the way while still trying to improve the team. So yes drafting is one way to do that but it is by no means a sure thing and it is really tough to determine when your picks will even be making an impact, if they ever do. If you just look at drafting you're not really considering the full picture of building a team. If we look at the Flames most recent drafting...

10 most recent first round picks outside the top ten:

Valimaki
Poirier
Klimchuk
Jankowski
Baertschi
Erixon
Nemisz
Backlund
Irving
Pelech

10 most recent second round picks:

Parsons
Dube
Andersson
Kylington
McDonald
Smith
Sieloff
Granlund
Wotherspoon
Wahl

Backlund is the only impact player of the bunch and it took him a decade to turn into that. Jankowski is the only other regular and it took him 5 years to make it as an inconsistent bottom 6 player. Andersson could be playing next season but it took at least 3 full seasons to make it as a 6th d-man.

Gaudreau has 4 years left on his deal. Does he re-sign? What is Gio's play like by then? What is Backlunds play like by then? Hamilton is UFA in 3 years. Does he re-sign? How much does Tkachuk ask for? Etc.

So yes drafting is important but even if you draft well how much is it going to take your team to the next level? Will the time you wait for your draft picks to develop provide more of a net gain to your team than what you lose to free agency, age, and salary increases?

[midniteowl]

I wake up every game day thinking that the Flames gonna win, someday I'm disappointed and someday I'm happy. I'll continue this until the Flames are officially out. However, I've been praying before I go to bed every night since that first game lost against the Oilers that GG will be fired. That has been nothing but disappointment.

[cannon7]

Originally Posted by Realtor 1

I still have no issues with Tre. Has he made some questionable moves, yea but the Hamonic trade is not one of them. It's easy to kick back at this point in the season and point fingers but let's be honest and look back at the trade thread when we picked him up. Next to nobody was complaining and we most likely kepts Hamonic from being an Oiler and upgrading that garbage team.
.

It's fine if you like the trade. But don't revise history. Many posters, including myself, called it that very day: it was an overpayment.

[timbit]

nm