You’re The GM

[Bonded]

First step as GM for me would be to hire at least one pro scout for each division

[edslunch]

Take a chance on younger players. DO NOT sign, trade for, or give PTOs to veteran bottom of the roster filler. Leave spots open for young players. Identify the prospects I believe have a legitimate future and are ready - talent evaluation is a key part of my job - and put them on the roster EVEN IF THEY DON'T IMPRESS AT CAMP. Give them an extended tryout - 10 or 20 games at least - let them grow into the role. If they fail then replace them, but I really haven't lost much over bottom end replacement players. If they don't fail, which I'm banking on, then I've improved the team.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Bonded

First step as GM for me would be to hire at least one pro scout for each division

To build on this, I'd scale up the scouting in Europe - not just Sweden/Finland, but Germany, Denmark, Switzerland - obscure guys in lower leagues who have one thing they do really well, and see if you can't turn them into players.

I'd also stay away from college FAs. I've been following this team closely since 2001 - I cannot recall a single one ever amounting to so much as a bit player.

Give those slots to guys who might not be great defensively, or who might not come from powerhouse nations, but who have something you can't teach. Whether it's speed, hands, vision, breakouts, PP QB, IQ - the farm should be a bit of an island of misfit toys where you hone that thing they're good at while teaching them to play D.

Quit being fooled by Connor Mackey and Spencer Foo and the laundry list of seat-fillers who pass through each year.

[Bleeding Red]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

To build on this, I'd scale up the scouting in Europe - not just Sweden/Finland, but Germany, Denmark, Switzerland - obscure guys in lower leagues who have one thing they do really well, and see if you can't turn them into players.

I'd also stay away from college FAs. I've been following this team closely since 2001 - I cannot recall a single one ever amounting to so much as a bit player.

Give those slots to guys who might not be great defensively, or who might not come from powerhouse nations, but who have something you can't teach. Whether it's speed, hands, vision, breakouts, PP QB, IQ - the farm should be a bit of an island of misfit toys where you hone that thing they're good at while teaching them to play D.

Quit being fooled by Connor Mackey and Spencer Foo and the laundry list of seat-fillers who pass through each year.

I that's a bit of "what have you done for me lately" thinking. If the Flames had started out ignoring college FAs then we would have missed out on Otto, Patterson & Macoun.

The Flames have also had a lot of guys who are good at 1 thing, but can't put any of the other things together - Baertschi, Nakladal come to mind.

The thing about those obscure, lower league Europeans is that if they don't move up quickly it's easier for them to go back and play in Europe. Generally no big loss, but no better than college FAs.


At the end of the day you can scout the hell out of all these areas. It's just spaghetti at the wall.

[Ped]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

I'd also stay away from college FAs. I've been following this team closely since 2001 - I cannot recall a single one ever amounting to so much as a bit player.

College FAs are fine as long as you understand the odds are against him. But there are enough success stories or guys that at least became useful players that it's no wonder teams keep going to that well.

Tyler Bozak
Dan Boyle
Jason Garrison
Teddy Purcell
Torey Krug
Andy Greene
Matt Read
Danny Dekeyser
Chris Kunitz
Martin St Louis
Cam Talbot
Brandon Tanev
John Madden
Conor Sheary
Nate Schmidt
Troy Stecher

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Ped

College FAs are fine as long as you understand the odds are against him. But there are enough success stories or guys that at least became useful players that it's no wonder teams keep going to that well.

Tyler Bozak
Dan Boyle
Jason Garrison
Teddy Purcell
Torey Krug
Andy Greene
Matt Read
Danny Dekeyser
Chris Kunitz
Martin St Louis
Cam Talbot
Brandon Tanev
John Madden
Conor Sheary
Nate Schmidt
Troy Stecher

That’s an astronomically small list of players relative to the pool of college FAs that get signed every year.

The contract slots are better spent elsewhere.

[Bleeding Red]

A team has just as good a shot at turning the player with the hardest shot in the Czech league into a decent all round NHLer as they do of turning the fastest college FA into one. It's all a bit of a crap shoot, so why limit yourself?

GM to scout: "Don't show me any college FAs!"..."Oh an no goalies under 6'5" and no D-men under 6'3" and no forwards under 6'1"! All those guys'll suck!"

Old time TML fans still cry about how Ballard wouldn't consider Russian players, so they missed out on drafting Makarov, Federov, etc.

If you are going to throw spaghetti at the wall and hope some sticks, may as well be the biggest bowl of friggin spaghetti you can find.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

I'd also stay away from college FAs. I've been following this team closely since 2001 - I cannot recall a single one ever amounting to so much as a bit player.

You should not ignore any possible source of talent when you're trying to retool or rebuild. Yeah, a lot of the college UFAs have been hot garbage but some have been really good. You have to take chances here and there and when most of these guys end up playing in the minors to start the risk is minimal. When we haven't drafted enough players to fill up our minor league system you have to find those guys somewhere.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

You should not ignore any possible source of talent when you're trying to retool or rebuild. Yeah, a lot of the college UFAs have been hot garbage but some have been really good. You have to take chances here and there and when most of these guys end up playing in the minors to start the risk is minimal. When we haven't drafted enough players to fill up our minor league system you have to find those guys somewhere.

Yeah exactly ... it's a free prospect with zero draft capital spent.

Given the hit rates of draft picks in rounds 4-7 it's not a waste of time to try and recruit college players every year, get them in your system and see where it goes.

Mackey and Duehr played ... that's huge.

They don't all make a Foo of you.

[Reggie Dunlop]

College FAs aren't what they used to be, scouting is so much better now. Still, there's some that blossom later in their early 20s.

They're about the equivalent of a mid-to-late round pick, only more mature. Good depth for your organization or as extra trade chips.

[FlamesFanFromBC]

It's easy as just following the steps included in this AI answer.

Improving a hockey team like the NHL Calgary Flames requires a comprehensive approach. Some areas that could be improved include:

• Winning more one-goal games
• Improving the power play
• Focusing on getting better as a team
• Identifying and addressing weaknesses in the roster

To make specific recommendations, it would be necessary to conduct a more detailed analysis of the team's performance and identify areas for improvement.

[Macho0978]

I don't think Scouting is the problem. The flames were one of the finalist for Panarin when he came to NA. Most players signed are just depth. The Flames have depth. They lack star players.

If they don't want to rebuild, they need to look at selling when it's smart to sell. This will put them in a spot of being a team with additional picks and cap space following a off year. Other than rebuilding, have extra picks is when you see teams hit big on picks outside the top 10. Not always, but your odds go up.

The Bruins is as good as it gets right now, and their core is a prime example of players not taken in the top 10 of the draft. They had a stretch many years ago where they hit on having extra picks in the mid rounds. Adding guys like Pasta late in the first was huge too.

This Flames team roles 4 lines and has 3 very good lines. This is why they out play teams. But they lack talent. This is why the PP sucks, they suck in OT and they never come from behind to win games late. You just aren't scoring a ton no matter how many chances guys like Backlund, Coleman, Dube types get. Good players but they aren't finishing like McDavid, Matthews, Mackinnon, Kucherov types do.

[Ped]

As others have said, they're free chances. Look at down draft years. In 2005, the Flames draft class payed 74 games. 2006, just 13. 2009, 130. 2010 saw one player play more than 23 games. 2013 had one player play more than 37. 2014, just one played NHL games. 2018 at zero, and quite possible to stay that way.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

That’s an astronomically small list of players relative to the pool of college FAs that get signed every year.

The contract slots are better spent elsewhere.

The hit rate for college FAs is probably not too different from mid to late round picks.
As others have said, no source of talent should go ignored.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

The hit rate for college FAs is probably not too different from mid to late round picks.
As others have said, no source of talent should go ignored.

But they’re ignoring lots of European players to sign these NCAA guys.

We have no Swiss, Danish, or German players in the system.

Two Finns, one of whom is Tuola, who’s never coming back.

Three Swedes, and you don’t hear anything about any of them.

Two Czechs, one Slovak.

Compared to 26 Canadian/US players.

Thank goodness they’ve begun to emphasize taking a Russian every draft.

Like, there are 83M people in Germany - a few of them have to be good at hockey.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

But they’re ignoring lots of European players to sign these NCAA guys.

We have no Swiss, Danish, or German players in the system.

Two Finns, one of whom is Tuola, who’s never coming back.

Three Swedes, and you don’t hear anything about any of them.

Two Czechs, one Slovak.

Compared to 26 Canadian/US players.

Thank goodness they’ve begun to emphasize taking a Russian every draft.

Like, there are 83M people in Germany - a few of them have to be good at hockey.

Are they ignoring them or just haven't chosen to sign any or convinced them to sign?
Or are you saying they should draft more Europeans.
You seem to be changing the thing you are upset about.

Again no source of talent should be ignored.
That's the point people were making when you stated that you would avoid NCAA free agents. That type of blunt policy makes no sense.

[bluejays]

There may no policy against a particular nationality, but rather a general thought from one of the heads that certain nations may not worth being pursued. Especially if the flames are tight on scouting resources and they are prioritizing how to deploy their resources. I’d wager it’s a combination of biases though. Certainly if I were in charge and I had resource constraints Germany wouldn’t be high on my scouting list unless there was an obvious standout to go there. As a fan I do wonder how the flames stack up against other teams with their scouting budget.

[Ped]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

Like, there are 83M people in Germany - a few of them have to be good at hockey.

There are 8 Germans in the NHL. 12 Swiss. 6 Danes.

Instead of saying they'll take this or that, any team's priority should be to find players that can play, no matter their background. German may have 83 million people, but how many of them play high level hockey?

[Nelson]

I think the starting point is to fundamentally alter the way the organization runs. Step 1 would be to hire people who are independently brilliant and really interested in hockey. Being a former player or coach or front office person would not be a requirement. Then, instruct your hirees to audit how the team operates and determine why the team isn’t successful. Instruct them to figure out the optimal way to run a team, regardless how “it’s always been done.” Then, follow through with a play that accords with this vision.

[CFO]

Room is needed to be created in the top 9.

To start, one of magipange or Dube should be moved. A team will most likely pay on potential.

I think duer would be an excellent fit (speed, size, strength and shown some skill) to be with Coleman and backland.