Are the flames drafting to become to Chicaco Blackhawks?

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

but after that I would want them to be pushing hard for competitiveness the season after.

Absolutely. The Flames really don't want a losing mentality setting into it's refreshed roster the way it has on the Oilers.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Absolutely. The Flames really don't want a losing mentality setting into it's refreshed roster the way it has on the Oilers.

I'd side towards teams with more good players win more games then teams with less good ones. I don't think that mentality of a team has much to do with winning at the NHL level.

I think teams that want to turn it around quickly should be looking to stock up on under appreciated vets ala Phoenix rather then looking to prospects for answers.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

I'd side towards teams with more good players win more games then teams with less good ones. I don't think that mentality of a team has much to do with winning at the NHL level.

100% disagree.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

100% disagree.

Fair enough. Let's bring up the topic again in 3-4 years when the Flames are still looking to get back to the playoffs.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Fair enough. Let's bring up the topic again in 3-4 years when the Flames are still looking to get back to the playoffs.

Trolololol

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Trolololol

Sorry mang. That's the way it is when you blow up the core of your team. The only teams in the "new" NHL to make the post season within 3 years of blowing it up are as follows:

Boston- who went out and signed Chara and Savard the off season after tanking.
Washington- Ovechkin joined the team.
Buffalo- More of a money issue but went from powerhouse to missing the playoffs for two seasons before bouncing back.

Calgary hasn't made any moves to improve the team this offseason. They aren't on the fast track. They are going to lose a lot of games until Feaster stocks the roster with talent and having a bunch of guys with great attitudes because they are just happy to be in the NHL won't help.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Fair enough. Let's bring up the topic again in 3-4 years when the Flames are still looking to get back to the playoffs.

If the Oilers don't make the playoffs next season they will surpass the Flames worst playoff drought in franchise history. The bottom of the barrel is a cruel place.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Sorry mang. That's the way it is when you blow up the core of your team. The only teams in the "new" NHL to make the post season within 3 years of blowing it up are as follows:

Boston- who went out and signed Chara and Savard the off season after tanking.
Washington- Ovechkin joined the team.
Buffalo- More of a money issue but went from powerhouse to missing the playoffs for two seasons before bouncing back.

Calgary hasn't made any moves to improve the team this offseason. They aren't on the fast track. They are going to lose a lot of games until Feaster stocks the roster with talent and having a bunch of guys with great attitudes because they are just happy to be in the NHL won't help.

It's a mixture of the two. It is pointless for the Flames to go out and sign vets this summer, but as the young talent grows that's when you do it. The Flames are gunning for a top pick this summer but if they get an elite talent in the 2014 draft they shouldn't continue hoping for another top pick.

Chicago had a young roster that was growing together, but then they added three pieces like Marian Hossa, John Madden and Brian Campbell as UFA vets to put them over the top. This is what I'm talking about. They saw an emerging roster and added vets THAT summer to it.

You want to suck, but you don't want to let the sucking continue year-after-year and let that losing attitude seep into the core of the roster.

[Caged Great]

The Flames seem to have been finding their supporting cast players mostly this past season.

Currently if based on a contending team, this is where I would peg players.

First Line - Nobody (except through necessity, meaning no stars)
Second Line - Sven, Monahan, Gaudreau, Jankowski
Third line - Klimchuk, Knight, Poirier + a few others like Agostino
Fourth line - about a dozen guys.

Defense

Brodie is a first pairing guy
All of Sieloff, Kulak, Culkin, and Wotherspoon are depth guys (#4 or worse)

With this, you never know exactly how a prospect is going to develop. I was hoping that Brodie would be a solid two way defenseman that didn't embarrass himself in his own zone. Two years later, he looks like a young Dan Boyle. Similarly, you don't know if say a guy like Sven might just flame out and be a 3rd line guy or someone to just trade off. Jankowski might turn into Joe Thornton or he might turn into Joe Colborne. We won't know till they actually start playing in the NHL.

They do not have any star players, but they are also going to suck quite badly the next two years (Edmonton bad), so we should be able to get a Reinhart/Nylander/Ekblad type guy this year and someone similar the year after.

The thing with the Hawks and others is that they all had large amounts of good supporting cast players before getting their star talent to push them over the line. The other good thing with having so much depth of quality secondary guys is that down the road we can make moves similar to Simmons + Schenn for Richards to address needs to push us over the top.

[MrMastodonFarm]

At the end of the day the key is to be a top drafting and developing team. Year in and year out draft young talent then develop them into NHL players.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

If the Oilers don't make the playoffs next season they will surpass the Flames worst playoff drought in franchise history. The bottom of the barrel is a cruel place.

I won't be surprised at all if it happens. Mactavish hasn't done much to improve the team outside of Ference. At this point it looks like they are going to need breakouts by some combination of RNH, Yakupov, or Schultz to get a sniff of the post season.

Another example of ignoring steady vets in favour of prospects. It's almost always a bad idea.

[mister__big]

What's a "Chicaco"? Is it like Chica + Chico?

[return to the red]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

At the end of the day the key is to be a top drafting and developing team. Year in and year out draft young talent then develop them into NHL players.

Not only that but drafting players that fit an organizational need, this is where the Oilers have failed. They didn't need Yakupov at this stage of the game. This year they finally drafted what they needed.

It also didn't help that they were in such a "win now" mode that they have rushed these players into the league only to suffer injuries that could remain problems for the rest of their careers.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

It's a mixture of the two. It is pointless for the Flames to go out and sign vets this summer, but as the young talent grows that's when you do it. The Flames are gunning for a top pick this summer but if they get an elite talent in the 2014 draft they shouldn't continue hoping for another top pick.

Chicago had a young roster that was growing together, but then they added three pieces like Marian Hossa, John Madden and Brian Campbell as UFA vets to put them over the top. This is what I'm talking about. They saw an emerging roster and added vets THAT summer to it.

Even signing a few vets this summer wouldn't hurt the Flames chances at a high pick IMO. A few decent vets (ie not O'Brien) would not replace Kipper, Iginla, and Bouwmeester, let alone make the Flames better then last season.

Los Angeles for example was signing 3-4 decent vets every off season and they spent 3 years right at the bottom.

Tampa Bay has been going through some real growing pains despite drafting the best player since Crosby and generally being a bottom feeder. It usually takes a lot of time to acquire the critical mass of talent.

Expecting a Chicago-esque emergence is a little unrealistic IMO. They basically had 8-10 young players breakout at the same time and pretty much all of them were quality! I haven't seen that happen for another team that I can recall offhand in the last ten years.

You want to suck, but you don't want to let the sucking continue year-after-year and let that losing attitude seep into the core of the roster.

By not making a real attempt to improve this season, I believe Feaster is setting the table for multiple years of sucking. I don't think you can hit the switch so to speak. It's a slow process. I don't worry about the players really. Guys Gagner and Smid who are basically the only ones that were around for the whole Oilers suck show still compete every night.

Its horrible for the fans however. Watching just one season of bottom feeding hockey made me want to claw my eyes out. There are a lot of nights when there are zero positives to take away from the game. 3+ seasons is agonizing. If I were a Flames fan I would be wanting Feaster to do more to improve the Flames immediate future. A bunch of solid acquisitions year over year will take at least a couple of years to take effect anyhow.

[Da_Chief]

I think the difference between the Oilers and Flames re-build right now is that we have stockpiled the "character, grinders". We have couple guys in Gio and Glencross that are decent but bring the sandpaper game.

Already imho we have the bottom 6 set with Knight/Reinhart/Horak/Bouma/McGratton/Galiardi/Jones etc.

With Sven, Monahan (he would have to really screw up/concussions in order to not be an effective NHL player), Glencross up front. We're have way there. Add another top pick next year and its a team on the rise and you will have UFAs wanting to come here.

I'm not counting Gadreau/Poirier/Klimchuk etc.

I don't think this re-build will be as long as the Oilers has been. (At least I hope so )

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

I won't be surprised at all if it happens. Mactavish hasn't done much to improve the team outside of Ference. At this point it looks like they are going to need breakouts by some combination of RNH, Yakupov, or Schultz to get a sniff of the post season.

Another example of ignoring steady vets in favour of prospects. It's almost always a bad idea.

I think Gordon and Perron were big adds for the Oilers. They had a smart summer so far, sad to say.

But they are still a long way from being something special, they need to do something about Goaltending, and there Defense is still vary sub par. I wanted Ference back on the Flames but as a bottom pairing guy, he wasn't even a top 4 when he was 30.

[Izzle]

Originally Posted by return to the red

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

At the end of the day the key is to be a top drafting and developing team. Year in and year out draft young talent then develop them into NHL players.

Not only that but drafting players that fit an organizational need, this is where the Oilers have failed. They didn't need Yakupov at this stage of the game. This year they finally drafted what they needed.

It also didn't help that they were in such a "win now" mode that they have rushed these players into the league only to suffer injuries that could remain problems for the rest of their careers.

They did have first overall. I would be hesitant to draft d first overall. I guess it makes sense to get Yak for consensus #1. The real fail is getting to that point... With hall and rnh in the bag, they should have improved so that they didn't have to pick first overall, they could have then concentrated on d.




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