Making the playoffs or keeping our top-10 first round pick 2025?

[Bonded]

Originally Posted by traptor

We have everything set in place to be a mushy middle team for the next decade...

G
Good young goalie.. Decent depth at every position but center.
Minimal elite talent.

Why do I feel like we're going to end up were we always do...

If they continue in the mushy middle it will just be a slow descent into the bottom of the standings as the vets age out.

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by Bonded

If they continue in the mushy middle it will just be a slow descent into the bottom of the standings as the vets age out.

If Wolf continues to trend the way he does, he could prevent this team from ever finishing bottom 5.

It's really kind of unfortunate when you look at some of the other successful rebuilds around the league. Often the very last piece they find is a good goaltender.

Of course, sometimes those rebuilding teams never find their goaltender.

It's just so Flames that it appears that they've found their franchise goaltender, but he may prevent them from acquiring other true foundational pieces.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

The Sharks have Celebrini, Smith, Askarov and maybe even a Schaefer in this draft.

They are closer to winning a Cup than Calgary.

You may say it's an unnecessary amount of pain, but I'd say it's a necessary amount of pain for a proper rebuild.

Ask Buffalo, Montreal, NYR, Detroit, Ottawa, and Anaheim fans how close they feel to winning a Stanley Cup. You're just as likely to draft a Slafkovsky with the #1 overall as a Celebrini.

Crosby and the old draft rules horribly skewed people's perception of the effectiveness of tanking. You mostly do need top talent from the draft, but totally tearing things down results in disaster. The successful teams are the ones that pick up a small amount of players from the top end of the draft and then build around them. The perpetually unsuccessful teams are the ones who bottom out year after year for many years straight.

It's now been 10 years since a team with the #1 overall pick won a cup, and the team closest to winning is New Jersey?

[BrownDrake]

True on the scorched earth tear down, you can also destroy the room like Drury may have done but I think neither of these avenues have ever been an option for the flames, Conroy has even been very transparent on that.


There is a lot of people here whining because we are gonna pick 24th but those decisions were made a few years ago and you have to live with them. There is no way you bench wolf or give away a pick to unload our best center in Kadri or put Huberdeau on the 4th line or destroy the culture by pulling moves to lose, the players are pretty wise to that and that isn't helpful for any rebuild see Buffalo and perhaps even Edmonton had they not won the last lottery.


We are likely losing our pick because of a poor trade with Montreal and we aren't a team full of losers.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by blankall

Ask Buffalo, Montreal, NYR, Detroit, Ottawa, and Anaheim fans how close they feel to winning a Stanley Cup. You're just as likely to draft a Slafkovsky with the #1 overall as a Celebrini.

Crosby and the old draft rules horribly skewed people's perception of the effectiveness of tanking. You mostly do need top talent from the draft, but totally tearing things down results in disaster. The successful teams are the ones that pick up a small amount of players from the top end of the draft and then build around them. The perpetually unsuccessful teams are the ones who bottom out year after year for many years straight.

It's now been 10 years since a team with the #1 overall pick won a cup, and the team closest to winning is New Jersey?

Florida just won the cup...

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

Florida just won the cup...

And Chicago won it 9 years ago.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by blankall

Ask Buffalo, Montreal, NYR, Detroit, Ottawa, and Anaheim fans how close they feel to winning a Stanley Cup. You're just as likely to draft a Slafkovsky with the #1 overall as a Celebrini.

How close are the Flames, Islanders, Flyers, and other non-tanking teams?

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

And Chicago won it 9 years ago.

Tampa won it with a #1 and #2 overall pick on the roster back-to-back. Vegas just won it with the #2 overall pick.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

How close are the Flames, Islanders, Flyers, and other non-tanking teams?

Really these three teams are in much worse shape than any of the tanking teams outside of maybe Detroit. There's still hope for Montreal, Buffalo, NYR, Ottawa, Anaheim, and the Sharks are coming along fine. Flames, Islanders, Flyers have all plateaued in the mushy middle and are trending to unintentional (maybe Connie is trying but Wolf is sidetracking things) tanking.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by redmile04

I want to ask why you are done with that? We have seen this team make the playoffs many teams over the last 35 years and lose in the first round.

Why would we want not want actual success and longer cup runs. A top ten would not guarantee it but would give us a better shot.

2015 comes to mind, feel good story and overachieved and won a round vs the rivals. I remember feeling so good about that and now i look back and its been a decade and we didn't make a single conference final despite how promising things looked because of that year.

I think the long term future will be ( or at least has a better chance) better if the pick is top 10. We are lacking star power in the pipeline. That is fairly obvious.

Because they're lovable as hell.

The organization did the right thing and let 7 UFAs go for futures, moved their starting goaltender without a known replacement, and then took $20M in cap space into the season.

The team isn't getting the memo.

I don't have a problem with that, and the longer it goes on the more I realize I may as well just enjoy it and cheer for it.

[Bingo]

Florida gap moved to 4.

Flames 15th
Panthers 11th

[Badgers Nose]

All this grit the kids are learning by grinding out wins while suffering from a big talent deficit will pay off when we either obtain talent externally or promote it from within.

Guys like Zary, Coronato, Pospisil, Pelts and Bahl will be able to teach the newly promoted guys what it takes to be an NHLer and if we get help inbound via cap dump trades it will just be that much easier for this group.

But hopefully there is a third way where we get some B+ prospects by facilitating trades between contending teams with our cap space. Maybe that’s how we get that 1C.

[Burning Beard]

I was saying all summer that if Wolf lives up to his potential a full tank would be impossible. I'm ok with that as it seems so far that he will be an excellent goaltender for many years in the organization if all goes well. A goalie can steal games just like an elite centre. There are also more ways than one to build a team, which Conroy seems to get. He has sold a bunch of player and brought in a ton of draft capital. He has also made smart waiver wire pickups and targeted players like Bahl in trades.

It's honestly going to get pretty tiring reading "mushy middle" and people talking about the Flames wallowing in mediocrity for years because as long as the team has Wolf we will have to get used to the idea that the team will have to be rebuilt differently than the way many prefer. The only option I see for a full tank is trading Wolf and all the vets who remain.

It might not work and that would be a bummer, but Conroy can only play the cards he was dealt and I'm going to hope for the best.

[saillias]

The path is already chosen for us, it's not going to be a bottom 10 team. All Conroy can do is continue to shop for a young potential 1st line center, sell Andersson, or maybe find a taker for Kuzmenko/Vladar.

As for the goalie situation I think you can take the training wheels off Wolf and stop the even tandem and do more of a 5:3 split or 6:2.

[MrButtons]

Originally Posted by Bonded

I don’t really buy into the idea that teams tell their players to not win and they go and do it. Most of the tanks are the results of bad rosters and going scorched earth is harder to comeback from because a team needs to get lucky when they draft and have strong management.

Treliving had a contending core if he kept the players the Flames drafted. I think the Flames need to find a star winger, a star center, and a star dman. Maybe they have the dman and winger in the system but they definitely don’t have the centre.

Agreed. Part of the reason these guys are in the show is competitive mindsets. Anyone who has spent time with someone that played pro anything knows they have a different gear than us common folk. Plus, it's their career. Why would a player want to purposefully play bad and have a young guy come in and take their spot? You can set up a team to tank (flames) or you can just be no good and suck (edmonton), but no way players try to lose, I just dont see them wired that way.

[Rhett44]

It's great we found a potentially franchise elite goalie.

But now we are stuck in the mushy middle forever, hard to see us ever getting the kind of elite talent needed for a cup.

Not good enough for a playoff run. Not bad enough for a game changing draft pick. Stuck in the middle.

[Paulie Walnuts]

I still think the team will get worse next season.

I think Wolf will be great, but goaltending is tricky year to year as well. Not long ago a few years off from a cup the Blues tried to give away Binnington.

The team will have to get its elite talent from the draft, not waiver wire pickups or free agency. We can try trades, but I don't see it.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

Florida just won the cup...

I should have clarified. It's been 10 years since a player was drafted at #1 and then went on to win the cup.

I also don't think Ekblad was the key to Florida winning, and he could have been replaced with a lot of other d-men.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Burning Beard

I was saying all summer that if Wolf lives up to his potential a full tank would be impossible. I'm ok with that as it seems so far that he will be an excellent goaltender for many years in the organization if all goes well. A goalie can steal games just like an elite centre. There are also more ways than one to build a team, which Conroy seems to get. He has sold a bunch of player and brought in a ton of draft capital. He has also made smart waiver wire pickups and targeted players like Bahl in trades.

It's honestly going to get pretty tiring reading "mushy middle" and people talking about the Flames wallowing in mediocrity for years because as long as the team has Wolf we will have to get used to the idea that the team will have to be rebuilt differently than the way many prefer. The only option I see for a full tank is trading Wolf and all the vets who remain.

It might not work and that would be a bummer, but Conroy can only play the cards he was dealt and I'm going to hope for the best.

I would assume you have been a Flames fan long enough to know the Flames have been wallowing in mediocrity for decades, not years and this conversation is not a new thing. It's just the reality of the franchise we support. Even with Wolf I don't see the team being better next season or the season after for that matter. Any gains made by Coronato or Zary will be negated by Kadri, Backlund, Coleman, Huberdeau being another year near the end of their careers.

[Bonded]

I’m just hoping for a big sophomore slump out of Wolf and 1st overall next year at this point.