Francis: It's time for the Flames to get serious about bottoming out

[FlamesNightmare]

Team Tank!

[FlamingHomer]

How about getting a high pick and NOT trading them to Florida.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by cam_calderon

We still have Ras as a decent trade chip but his value is diminishing daily. There may or not be a good fit at the deadline but I say trade Andersson before the best available return is a third and middling prospect.

Why is that?

Playing top pairing role on a terrible team but has a 53.5% xGF% and has scored twice on the season.

He's 5th for defensemen for expected individual goals per game.

I don't see the asset value diminishing at all.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Not exactly newsworthy as he's just repeating what plenty of us have been saying for years but I suppose the media getting in on the tank can't hurt. That said I kind of feel Conny is in on it already as he didn't make a single move in the summer to improve the team and a lot of key contributors are one year further into their 30's as Backlund and Coleman certainly are starting to look their age and Kadri is not likely going to replicate last season. Feels to me like everything is going to plan for the GM as it's not something he can probably ever let out of the bag in this market under this owner but I'm sure even Edwards has been briefed on what's the best approach to ensure that there's a bit of excitement when the team opens up the new arena. It's the perfect time to take on some hopefully short term pain for long term gains. If a market like Montreal can handle a rebuild, surely Calgary can.

I would guess Conroy was as surprised as anyone that the team hung in and almost made the playoffs last year.

He did little to set that up.

[Goriders]

Originally Posted by Dion

I hope that vets can find their scoring before a season is lost.

I think if they lose to winnipeg and NYR it more or less is lost. They are at the point that they’d have to win 2 out of 3 just to squeeze in. There’s no way this team is going to do that with their anemic scoring.

[Goriders]

Originally Posted by jg13

The most Flames thing to happen would be to draft McKenna and him bust

Teach him to:

- dump and chase
- ring it around the boards back to the point
- rush to front of net to wave frantically at a rebound if there is one

So teach him dynamic offence

[Goriders]

Originally Posted by Macho0978

I think the point is Montreal had 2 1sts, 2 2nds, 2 3rds, 2 7ths that year and a pick in every round. Odds are you can hit on a pick like that with that many extra picks.

Flames have been doing well with these picks too. We are up a 1st and a 3rd already, but if we sold 3-5 players, we could be up several picks in many rounds for the next 3 years.

We need the top 5 pick more than anything though.

In my mind the Flames don’t have many veterans worth trading anymore. Most of them are pretty old.

- Coleman
- Andersson
- Kadri
- Weegar

Outside of that you have younger guys you probably don’t want to trade:

- Bahl
- Wolf
- Coronato
- Honzek
- Parekh
- Gridin
- Klapka
- Pospisil
- Zary

Guys who for various reasons at this point are untradeable:

- Frost
- Farabee
- Huberdeau
- Backlund
- Cooley
- Sharangovich

And scrubs no one would probably ask about

- Bean
- Pachal
- Hanley
- Lomberg
- Kirkland

So not that many bullets left in the chamber to get 1st round picks. Maybe 3 or 4. If you pump all of them out this season what do you do next year?

Even if you get first round picks for the 4 appealing vets they are going to be in the top half of the draft. 16-32 range.

Flames are running out of bullets.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by dino7c

His example is to draft Lane Hutson in the 2nd round lol

Juraj Slafkovsky I get

I think that example is they acquired an extra pick by committing to being bad and trading off Kulak. So somewhat tied to committing to a tank. Montreal had 3 picks before Hutson that year too, so maybe made them more confident to take the smaller dman with one.

And it still makes me sad that the Flames didn't take Hutson who was the obvious BPA when they were picking in the second round.

[Royle9]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Not exactly newsworthy as he's just repeating what plenty of us have been saying for years but I suppose the media getting in on the tank can't hurt.

You're not wrong, but I view it completely different as typically he wouldn't come out and speak against the team's plans.
Francis is a direct mouthpiece for ownership and the team in general so the fact that he's waiving the white flag and even posting the words "rebuild" is a positive one.

We may finally get what we need.

[edn88]

I am officially on team rebuild. I hate agreeing with Francis - it makes me feel dirty. Wake me up when the Flames are good again.

[fotze2]

I'm on Team 'sell the team to an owner who isn't Jabba the C word'.

Don't you guys worry, we are gonna go on a tear.

[Savvy27]

I wonder if all the excitement about the Blue Jays will have Kadri opening his mind to a return to Toronto?

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by Goriders

In my mind the Flames don’t have many veterans worth trading anymore. Most of them are pretty old.

- Coleman
- Andersson
- Kadri
- Weegar

Outside of that you have younger guys you probably don’t want to trade:

- Bahl
- Wolf
- Coronato
- Honzek
- Parekh
- Gridin
- Klapka
- Pospisil
- Zary

Guys who for various reasons at this point are untradeable:

- Frost
- Farabee
- Huberdeau
- Backlund
- Cooley
- Sharangovich

And scrubs no one would probably ask about

- Bean
- Pachal
- Hanley
- Lomberg
- Kirkland

So not that many bullets left in the chamber to get 1st round picks. Maybe 3 or 4. If you pump all of them out this season what do you do next year?

Even if you get first round picks for the 4 appealing vets they are going to be in the top half of the draft. 16-32 range.

Flames are running out of bullets.

I don't think we can get 1sts for all these players, but why hold out for 1sts?

We have to salary retention spots too. Need to use those wisely and we can take bad contracts back.

We may only end up with 2-3 1sts this year if we sell off a bunch of players, but we should be able to add 2nds and 3rds too.

It's pretty early to say this team is so bad that none of these guys will turn it around. We just need to lose for a bit longer so it's just not possible to make the playoffs no matter how well we play. We also probably need to make one early season trade. Rasmus is that guy IMO that could move now and leave a big hole in this team to lose enough games.

[SuperMatt18]

I do think there is a difference between what San Jose and Chicago did...which can be hard to recover from...and what the Flames need to do here.

This to me is more like the Avs in 16-17. Avs were kind of mid the two years prior with 90 and 82 points respectively. Then somehow put up a random 48 point season, and got Cale Makar.

You don't have to go trade every veteran but the ones that make sense like Coleman and Andersson should be traded sooner rather than later, especially with the rule changes making there no benefit of waiting until the deadline for the acquiring team.

Then if that opens the door to someone like Kadri wanting to be traded then you pursue that too.

And if guys have injuries then shut them down, no need to play guys through injury.

Just lean into being bad this season, and lean into it hard. You don't have to finish dead last but with this start bottom 5 should not be impossible.

[VilleN]

Originally Posted by Goriders

In my mind the Flames don’t have many veterans worth trading anymore. Most of them are pretty old.

[...]

So not that many bullets left in the chamber to get 1st round picks. Maybe 3 or 4. If you pump all of them out this season what do you do next year?

Even if you get first round picks for the 4 appealing vets they are going to be in the top half of the draft. 16-32 range.

Flames are running out of bullets.

We're running out of bullets? I mean, we've already traded a bunch, we still have 2 or 3 guys to trade... oh and you get 7 picks a year for free... I really don't know what you meant by this post.... all teams have a finite amount of players to trade for assets when they are rebuilding... Flames are no different, and from my view, have done pretty well so for in acquiring assets to rebuild with.

[fotze2]

I think if we just became a team that makes indiscriminate trades, our fanbase would be the happiest in the league. One a week might be good.

You are the worst team in a generation!!!

Ya but we trade a lot!

[DigitalCarpenter]

Queue the 9 game winning streak....

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Royle9

You're not wrong, but I view it completely different as typically he wouldn't come out and speak against the team's plans.
Francis is a direct mouthpiece for ownership and the team in general so the fact that he's waiving the white flag and even posting the words "rebuild" is a positive one.

We may finally get what we need.

Was going to say this - this is a clear sign that the owners are supportive of the rebuild.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by jg13

The most Flames thing to happen would be to draft McKenna and him bust

Actually building around an all-star winger but never acquiring an all-star center to play with him is a very Flames thing to do.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Royle9

You're not wrong, but I view it completely different as typically he wouldn't come out and speak against the team's plans.
Francis is a direct mouthpiece for ownership and the team in general so the fact that he's waiving the white flag and even posting the words "rebuild" is a positive one.

We may finally get what we need.

Potentially testing the reaction to what they are internally discussing?