I don't know why we always talk about this given that are basically no examples of a team embracing a full multi-year tank and going on to actually win the cup. Of the last 10 winners, excepting St. Louis and Vegas as outliers, all acquired elite talent because of incompetence and luck. Chicago, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Colorado, Florida were all trying to win and be competitive during the years they drafted high. They just sucked at it. And won lotteries. It's really not that complicated. You need to get recognize when you are unlucky and try to maximize your chances at getting lucky.
The key is recognizing when it's not your year because of injuries or chemistry or whatever and letting the team drop in the standings. I agree that this is a mistake that Calgary has made several times. But each year you should be trying to ice a competitive team.
I don't agree. Often good teams on paper that finish at the bottom are either way too young of a team or a team full of players way past their prime.
Oilers sucked and added vets while they were at the bottom trying to get better and failed at it. But when you have a team full of 19–25-year-olds, you are going to lose games. This is why Buffako always sucks. They are way too young and lose players when they are good enough to win it for you. They can't retain the elite players long enough.
Flames keep the vets they will lose games soon too. Wolf didn't just carry this team to 96 points. The vets were a big reason for the surprise season. We keep them, we will suck in the next 2 - 3 years. Or we trade them now, get assets and suck now. I pick now.
Flames keep the vets they will lose games soon too. Wolf didn't just carry this team to 96 points. The vets were a big reason for the surprise season. We keep them, we will suck in the next 2 - 3 years. Or we trade them now, get assets and suck now. I pick now.
Or some of the recent draft picks replace them or we acquire other pieces via trade or free agency. There is no guarantee that we suck in 3 years.
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*Disclaimer: I am a "glass half full" Flames fan.
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Or some of the recent draft picks replace them or we acquire other pieces via trade or free agency. There is no guarantee that we suck in 3 years.
No kidding. Complete disregard for any player on the team who is not in the veteran 6? Wolf, Parekh, Coronato, or any of the other several intriguing prospects hit then this team would easily be better in 2-3 years.
Where I somewhat agree with the take is I am not sure the current pieces are going to be enough to get this team further ahead than they are now. The flames are a treadmill team that doesn’t get too high or too low that often in the standings. Since the lockout they won the division 3x and picked in the top 10 4x. The rest of the time they were on one side of the bubble. People want to get off that treadmill and hopefully get to the top eventually but thinking/wanting the team to be really bad for 4-5 years to collect what they hope are the star players that will take the team to the promised land in another 10 or so years
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Weird. It's almost as if there is no perfect way of doing something because of all the variables, and if there was a perfect way of doing it then every franchise would and there would be complete parity league wide.
Or the ones that did figure it out would win every year because they know the secret system for a perfect franchise.
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Originally Posted by Poe969
It's the Law of E=NG. If there was an Edmonton on Mars, it would stink like Uranus.
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Weird. It's almost as if there is no perfect way of doing something because of all the variables, and if there was a perfect way of doing it then every franchise would and there would be complete parity league wide.
Or the ones that did figure it out would win every year because they know the secret system for a perfect franchise.
The tank crowd loves to talk about the high picks that were drafted by the team with only Vegas being the unrealistic outlier. With that said Florida in my opinion is built very similar to Vegas. Tkachuk, Reinhart, Bennett, Bobrovsky have been just as or more important to their runs as Barkov/Ekblad. Florida traded for former top 10 picks and it worked out. Flames did something similar with the Hurricanes trade in 2018 and it was the key move that helped them win the division twice in the 4 years after that deal.
Outside of the Hawks and Pens most teams win the cup a decade or so after their top players were picked. Last years Panthers had 3 of the top 4 picks from 2014 on their team and a top 2 pick from 2013. The Avs won 9 years after MacKinnon was picked. The Lightning won a decade or so after Kucherov and Vasilesky were picked. Blues were a decade or so after O’Rielly, and Pietrangelo were picked. The 2 Pens cups in 16-17 were 11-13 years after Crosby/Malkin. Kings cup in 2012 was 9 years after Carter/Brown/Richard and 2014 was 9 years after Kopitar.
Edmonton is making their push 9-10 years after McDavid was picked. Realistically for Calgary if they can get a couple of high picks in the next couple of years they can really look to be contending in 2035 and beyond
The tank crowd loves to talk about the high picks that were drafted by the team with only Vegas being the unrealistic outlier. With that said Florida in my opinion is built very similar to Vegas. Tkachuk, Reinhart, Bennett, Bobrovsky have been just as or more important to their runs as Barkov/Ekblad. Florida traded for former top 10 picks and it worked out. Flames did something similar with the Hurricanes trade in 2018 and it was the key move that helped them win the division twice in the 4 years after that deal.
Outside of the Hawks and Pens most teams win the cup a decade or so after their top players were picked. Last years Panthers had 3 of the top 4 picks from 2014 on their team and a top 2 pick from 2013. The Avs won 9 years after MacKinnon was picked. The Lightning won a decade or so after Kucherov and Vasilesky were picked. Blues were a decade or so after O’Rielly, and Pietrangelo were picked. The 2 Pens cups in 16-17 were 11-13 years after Crosby/Malkin. Kings cup in 2012 was 9 years after Carter/Brown/Richard and 2014 was 9 years after Kopitar.
Edmonton is making their push 9-10 years after McDavid was picked. Realistically for Calgary if they can get a couple of high picks in the next couple of years they can really look to be contending in 2035 and beyond
Bennett doesn't find the success he does without playing behind Barkov.
It's insane to downplay what it takes to be a contender/champion by saying "oh these other guys are just as/more important"...yeah, well, take Ekblad and Barkov away and see the success they have. If you take Barkov and Ekblad away from Florida, then you take Eichel and Pietrangelo away from Vegas and oh wait, they don't win a Championship.
Also, Kent absolutely nails it in that "The State of The Calgary Flames Ft. Kent Wilson" video posted a page back.
Weird. It's almost as if there is no perfect way of doing something because of all the variables, and if there was a perfect way of doing it then every franchise would and there would be complete parity league wide.
Or the ones that did figure it out would win every year because they know the secret system for a perfect franchise.
Which is a great point that should quiet down the tank obsession, but somehow never does, is instead going to met with “I’m not saying it’s perfect it’s just time the Flames try something different” and then around we go!
No kidding. Complete disregard for any player on the team who is not in the veteran 6? Wolf, Parekh, Coronato, or any of the other several intriguing prospects hit then this team would easily be better in 2-3 years.
Where I somewhat agree with the take is I am not sure the current pieces are going to be enough to get this team further ahead than they are now. The flames are a treadmill team that doesn’t get too high or too low that often in the standings. Since the lockout they won the division 3x and picked in the top 10 4x. The rest of the time they were on one side of the bubble. People want to get off that treadmill and hopefully get to the top eventually but thinking/wanting the team to be really bad for 4-5 years to collect what they hope are the star players that will take the team to the promised land in another 10 or so years
This is a well thought out take.
Kadri is playing at top line level.
Trouble was the gap between him and the next guy. I had hoped Frost would come in and look more like a top six rather than bottom six center. Alas that didnt happen or we probably have a hundred points and make the playoffs.
Also injury was an issue. Sharkbait coming off one and zary down twice. Wasnt one of the older players, So they got more ice.
Two things factored the most to my mind. Scoring obviously however it seems more like a one off year and our defence isn’t particularly mobile nor are they very scorey at their best. The system huska employs is a little to restrictive adding to the snakebitten woes.
Sharky should be better.
Zary hopefully healthy.
Coronato should continue to round out his game could hit 30 goals.
Frost and farabee i expect a lot better from. Both entering prime years and i am convinced Conny picking them up maybe played with their heads a bit couldn’t buy a goal between them.
I think klapka is going to be a beast, middle six winger.
Lots of reasons to be optimistic we just need something that approximates a top line center and another one in the wings for the future. Why i endorse the Rossi idea.
Add another top six center to this team that can get you 20 25 goals, trade andersson, bring up Parekh, get a more mobile middle pair defender this is a playoff team.
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Flames keep the vets they will lose games soon too. Wolf didn't just carry this team to 96 points. The vets were a big reason for the surprise season. We keep them, we will suck in the next 2 - 3 years. Or we trade them now, get assets and suck now. I pick now.
I mean hey, the Flames traded/let go Lindholm, Hanifin, Tanev, Toffoli, Lucic, Lewis, Zadorov and Markstrom and the team actually got better but sure, management’s steadfast refusal to move Kadri (NMC) and Coleman (no indication they won’t trade him) is really stopping them from spiralling down into drafting someone juicy and franchise altering like Nail Yakapov.
Management needs to set up an advice hotline so they can have a direction!
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In a recent article, Kent Wilson had some pretty good points about the state of the Flames retool, he then discussed it on Flames Nation's In The Dome:
The Flames have 3 cohorts: veterans (29+ year olds), prime (22-27 year olds), and prospects (21 and under)
A contending team needs to be gaining most of its production, and spend most of its cap on the prime group. Both Edmonton and Florida are getting the most production and spending the most cap on players in the veteran group as defined. Edmonton moreso and Florida has Tkachuk and Bennett at the very end of the prime window
Calgary spent 71% of its cap, and got 62% of its points from the veterans, while giving them 58% of the ice-time.
There are still a lot of 32, 34, 36,33 year-olds on the team, despite Conroy trading a large part of the previous core.
CGY's average age is the same as Dallas and Colorado, teams at the peak of their contention window.
CGY's veteran cohort is going to suffer through attrition in the next 3–5 years, and they're going to get worse. If they keep Andersson they're going to get even more expansive.
No matter what happens, the veteran cohort needs to be liquidated I don't understand why it's assumed they won't just because it's not done right now
Prime group: Wolf (pillar), Coronato (top 6, 20-30 scorer), Zary (injuries), Bahl (top 4), Sharangovich (step-back), Frost (struggle), Farabee (struggle)
The problem for the Flames is that you can't incrementally improve the middle rotation and get them to the next level. They need elite level talent so that everyone slots better.
He understands Conroy's point that you can't just throw away an entire season if you decide to rebuild, that you needed the veterans to instill the culture, because a team is not built on a spreadsheet, but he also pushes back on it:
culture has to be transmissible Agreed, but you can't transmit culture if you trade the group responsible for the transmission
If it just makes you keep the veterans around for fear of losing said culture, then it's really not that valuable Also, agreed, but I'm not convinced that's what the Flames are doing. Andersson is huge part of the core group and it sounds like he's on his way out. Others will follow
It's Parekh's cohort of 20-year-olds that might turn into this team's contention cohort when they're at their prime, the current vets likely won't be here for that, and no one is going to remember this team 10 years down the road. This board will remember, haha
Wolf makes bottoming out harder, he either came in 5 years too early, or 5 years too late. I don't know. Dude is 24. He can be around for 10-15 years. I think it's overly pessimistic to think the Flames can't create a winning window in that time.
CGY's trying to not be bad instead of just trying to be great, while the NHL's system rewards teams that are terrible. Which leads to constantly being in the middle of the pack. I mean, I just disagree. I don't believe that's the target at all. We appear to have elite goaltending. We appear to have a potential elite d-man. If both those things turn out to be true, we're closer to great than 'not bad'
The only way to get out of the middle without being bad, is to get extremely lucky with picks like Gaudreau and Kucherov in the later rounds, which come around once in a decade.
You get about 10 stars per draft, even fewer superstars. The chances of getting franchise defining talent outside the top 10 are extremely slim as a result.
Getting 3 stars in a draft like Dallas did is not a model, if the Flames could do that, they would've done that already. Kudos to Dallas for both finding those guys, and developing them properly. The Flames might have last year
Making incremental improvements to a roster technically bring you closer to winning the cup, but attempting to make the team the best possible team in a future 5-year window is a much better approach.
The Flames have accelerated a little too quickly out of the previous rebuild when they found out Gaudreau was a star. It combined with some bad luck like the Monahan injuries.
The Flames missed an opportunity to start a rebuild once Tkachuk and Gaudreau had to move on. Now because of that they're stuck in a weird no-man's-land. People keep saying this. It was true under Treliving. But, last year under Conroy, the Flames had the second lowest cap. That is an attempt at a losing roster.
*snipped for brevity*.
I don't disagree with the article, but there are some areas that can be challenged. Thoughts in bold
Last edited by Leeman4Gilmour; 06-11-2025 at 08:55 AM.
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The tank crowd loves to talk about the high picks that were drafted by the team with only Vegas being the unrealistic outlier. With that said Florida in my opinion is built very similar to Vegas. Tkachuk, Reinhart, Bennett, Bobrovsky have been just as or more important to their runs as Barkov/Ekblad. Florida traded for former top 10 picks and it worked out. Flames did something similar with the Hurricanes trade in 2018 and it was the key move that helped them win the division twice in the 4 years after that deal.
Outside of the Hawks and Pens most teams win the cup a decade or so after their top players were picked. Last years Panthers had 3 of the top 4 picks from 2014 on their team and a top 2 pick from 2013. The Avs won 9 years after MacKinnon was picked. The Lightning won a decade or so after Kucherov and Vasilesky were picked. Blues were a decade or so after O’Rielly, and Pietrangelo were picked. The 2 Pens cups in 16-17 were 11-13 years after Crosby/Malkin. Kings cup in 2012 was 9 years after Carter/Brown/Richard and 2014 was 9 years after Kopitar.
Edmonton is making their push 9-10 years after McDavid was picked. Realistically for Calgary if they can get a couple of high picks in the next couple of years they can really look to be contending in 2035 and beyond
I don't really see any similarities between Vegas and Florida and I don't know why Vegas should be even compared to any other team since it's an expansion.
Florida had three top 3 picks in Barkov, Ekblad and Huberdeau and Huberdeau they traded for another top 5 in Tkachuk. Those top picks are completely missing from the Flames and I'd argue that are even more important for them because they're not an UFA destination. I don't think Reinhart would've signed with the Flames for example. So they need those high picks desperately.
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I mean hey, the Flames traded/let go Lindholm, Hanifin, Tanev, Toffoli, Lucic, Lewis, Zadorov and Markstrom and the team actually got better but sure, management’s steadfast refusal to move Kadri (NMC) and Coleman (no indication they won’t trade him) is really stopping them from spiralling down into drafting someone juicy and franchise altering like Nail Yakapov.
Management needs to set up an advice hotline so they can have a direction!
Always pointing to Yakupov, rather than McDavid/Barkov/MacKinnon etc.
Also, you can't really use Edmonton picks anymore as a reason why it's a bad strategy, because despite their blithering incompetence they're still a significantly more successful organization than the Flames, even with their extended stay at the bottom (which lasted 10 years).
Edmonton:
- 13 series wins since 2003/2004
- 13 series wins since 2005/2006
- 8 playoff appearances since 2003/2004
- 8 playoff appearances since 2005/2006
- First Round Playoff Game Wins since 2003/2004: 24
- First Round Playoff Game Wins since 2005/2006: 24
- Second Round Playoff Game Wins since 2003/2004: 21
- Second Round Playoff Game Wins since 2005/2006: 21
- Third Round Playoff Game Wins since 2003/2004: 12
- Third Round Playoff Game Wins since 2005/2006: 12
- Fourth Round Playoff Game Wins since 2003/2004: 7
- Fourth Round Playoff Game Wins since 2005/2006: 7
64 Playoff Games Wins since 2003/2004
64 Playoff Games Wins since 2005/2006
Calgary:
- 5 series wins since 2003/2004
- 2 series wins since 2005/2006
- 10 playoff appearances since 2003/2004
- 9 playoff appearances since 2005/2006
- 35 playoff wins since 2003/2004
- 23 playoff wins since 2005/2006
- First Round Playoff Game Wins since 2003/2004: 23
- First Round Playoff Game Wins since 2005/2006: 19
- Second Round Playoff Game Wins since 2003/2004: 6
- Second Round Playoff Game Wins since 2005/2006: 2
- Third Round Playoff Game Wins since 2003/2004: 4
- Third Round Playoff Game Wins since 2005/2006: 0
- Fourth Round Playoff Game Wins since 2003/2004: 3
- Fourth Round Playoff Game Wins since 2005/2006: 0
36 Playoff Games Wins since 2003/2004
21 Playoff Games Wins since 2005/2006
And to toss salt in our wounds:
Battle of Alberta Playoff Wins:
Edmonton - 4
Calgary - 1
Point being, don't toss around Yakupov like it's some historic level failure/cautionary tale when the team that screwed that up so hard is still actually way better than the Flames.
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Bennett doesn't find the success he does without playing behind Barkov.
It's insane to downplay what it takes to be a contender/champion by saying "oh these other guys are just as/more important"...yeah, well, take Ekblad and Barkov away and see the success they have. If you take Barkov and Ekblad away from Florida, then you take Eichel and Pietrangelo away from Vegas and oh wait, they don't win a Championship.
Also, Kent absolutely nails it in that "The State of The Calgary Flames Ft. Kent Wilson" video posted a page back.
It is not even close to insane. Bennett was given a chance as a 2nd line C and thrived. He could have done that on multiple teams no question. I can take players picked later in the draft in Vegas and Florida and say how they don’t win the cup without those players.
Vegas and Florida acquired several of their top picks via trade they didn’t have to draft them
Man some of you are bitter. Is it the smoke? So far Conroy has prioritized drafting often and has traded off a number of players. He has sent out a second round pick for two proven NHLers who still have a chance to pop here getting to start the year here. For all the talk about having to be patient in a rebuild there sure are a lot of impatient posters complaining about Conroy not trading all the vets fast enough.
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Man some of you are bitter. Is it the smoke? So far Conroy has prioritized drafting often and has traded off a number of players. He has sent out a second round pick for two proven NHLers who still have a chance to pop here getting to start the year here. For all the talk about having to be patient in a rebuild there sure are a lot of impatient posters complaining about Conroy not trading all the vets fast enough.
The only vet that was easy to trade that he didn’t was Andersson and it will be interesting to see what he gets compared to the Carlo trade.
It is not even close to insane. Bennett was given a chance as a 2nd line C and thrived. He could have done that on multiple teams no question. I can take players picked later in the draft in Vegas and Florida and say how they don’t win the cup without those players.
Vegas and Florida acquired several of their top picks via trade they didn’t have to draft them
Florida had to draft both their #1 Selke winning Centre, and their #1 defenceman. The hardest positions to fill in the sport.
Vegas hit the Eichel trade, which is a once in two decades quality of player that comes up for trade - the last one being Thornton.
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