Vent your frustration (as a Flames fan) here

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

But they have been drafting for skill no? Monahan, Bennett, Gaudreau, Tkachuk...

Jankowski will go down as the worst 1st rounder however...

Not in every round I don't think they have.
Example:
They drafted Topi Ronni at 59 last draft. I don't mind the pick. I don't know the player well. But the Flames see him as a potential middle 6 forward.
Lane Hutson went at #62.
If Lane Hutson is an NHL player he will be impactful. He's got elite hockey sense. He does things that most players can't do.
But he's undersized. And his skating may not be good enough to over come that.

But if he hits, he will be viewed as the steal of the NHL draft and has the potential to be a game changer for the Habs.

I'm not one to get tunnel vision on a certain player because I don't follow them all or know them well.
But that's the type of thing I'm talking about.

Home run swings. Every. Pick.

My strong hypothesis is that over the long-term you will be better off.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Bingo

You can't if you're writing every ... damn ... game story.

I can't stand watching to write if I know they lose.

Well if you ever decide to take a night off but want to make sure a game takes gets written:

https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=190712

[Macho0978]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Fun thread strangely.
My frustrations are:
- Terrible asset management. Focus on building an asset base that allows you to compete for an extended period of time. This team has been asset weak for 30+ years. So it's constantly chasing its tail.
- Related but not willing to re-build. Even the initial re-build was prematurely ended leading to bad deals to open the window sooner. Have the discipline to see it through. I like prospects so a re-build to me is still entertaining
- I would also focus the draft entirely on skill and upside. Sign depth. Draft for skill. Skill gets you franchise changing players like Johnny Gaudreau and Nikita Kucherov. You may draft less NHLers but the ones you do will matter. Home run swings every time. I would ask my scouts if they could imagine a player at the top of the lineup and what skills they have that are elite. If there are no answers to either you don't draft them. That's how you get a guy like Jason Robertson who had elite hands, but awful skating which caused him to drop. Draft for the elite ability.

There are still market inefficiencies that can be taken advantage of in the NHL. The Flames rarely do that. But what is aggravating is when they have - it's worked!

Also get rid of fighting. Its stupid.

There is value in having a bunch of NHL ready prospects that have a ceiling of 2nd-4th line/3rd pairing ceiling. If you go with this draft strategy though you need to manage your roster to align with this strategy.

The Flames have a ton of NHL ready prospects options in the AHL or on the team right now. But only Ruzicka has got a regular stretch of playing (4th line now though). I see tons of value with all these players that could be an option but if you manage your roster to always be having the Rooneys, Ritchies, Lewis, Lucic types getting the playing time then drafting for home runs is by far the better strategy.

But if we cleaned house and filled the roster with 4 to 6 AHL players right now we could create a ton of cap space and have plenty of room for growth. But IMO you need to roll with that type of team in years where it's not looking good, and selling is the best option. If you sell when you should sell you get 20-25 games to see what you got in the AHL, you improve your draft pick (unless the kids play very well), and you set yourself up for a good summer with extra cap space.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Fun thread strangely.
My frustrations are:
- Terrible asset management. Focus on building an asset base that allows you to compete for an extended period of time. This team has been asset weak for 30+ years. So it's constantly chasing its tail.
- Related but not willing to re-build. Even the initial re-build was prematurely ended leading to bad deals to open the window sooner. Have the discipline to see it through. I like prospects so a re-build to me is still entertaining
- I would also focus the draft entirely on skill and upside. Sign depth. Draft for skill. Skill gets you franchise changing players like Johnny Gaudreau and Nikita Kucherov. You may draft less NHLers but the ones you do will matter. Home run swings every time. I would ask my scouts if they could imagine a player at the top of the lineup and what skills they have that are elite. If there are no answers to either you don't draft them. That's how you get a guy like Jason Robertson who had elite hands, but awful skating which caused him to drop. Draft for the elite ability.

There are still market inefficiencies that can be taken advantage of in the NHL. The Flames rarely do that. But what is aggravating is when they have - it's worked!

Also get rid of fighting. Its stupid.

100%. The way BT treats trading away picks so casually is incredibly frustrating.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by flames_fan_down_under

100%. The way BT treats trading away picks so casually is incredibly frustrating.

Yes but I believe it's a symptom of the bigger problem, which is the ownerships demand to compete now.

BT is executing to the overall strategy demanded of him.
The problem is the strategy itself.

All what I believe. I can't prove it. But that element has cut across decades and multiple GMs.

I would love to see a BT executed re-build.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

But they have been drafting for skill no? Monahan, Bennett, Gaudreau, Tkachuk...

Jankowski will go down as the worst 1st rounder however...

it was a dud, but worst for who?


in that 2012 draft alone, I think 10 first rounders have played less games, several are already retired or at least gone from the NHL- hell in the top 10 alone we have the Oilers trio of Yakupov, Reinhart and Koekkoek




even worse for the Flames, there are 18 first rounders (and I'm not even including the post 2017 guys) who had shorter careers than Janko


you are an optimist if you think he's as bad as he gets

[gallione11]

Originally Posted by SebC

I can support a good team on the ice, or a bad team on the ice.

My frustrations as a Flames fan are with three things, primarily.

- BS subjective officiating. I want consistency. The standard for a penalty or a goal should not change except for rule changes.

- Subsidizing arenas for billionaires (and their millionaire employees), especially when the new arenas make things worse for the average fan by having fewer and more expensive seats.

- Blocking Olympic participation. Don't take that away from me, jerks.

We could have a Stanley-Cup dynasty winning team, and NHL officiating and arena subsidies would still rob me of joy. Most teams aren't going to be winners, that's the nature of a 32-team league. The league can't make everyone happy to be backing a winner. But what they can do is treat this those teams and their fans fairly, and not in the "it rains on the enemy too sense", but in the "stop raining crap on all of us" sense.

This x 10000.

Lack of true success aside, this is the number 1 reason I stopped giving money to the NHL after the Colorado series. Not that I was giving them much anyway -- just the Center Ice Subscription but I got tired of not ever knowing what will be called from any moment to the next. Especially with the rules sometimes changing by period!

Honestly, if you find that watching this team or just hockey in general, is not a positive experience, consider stopping. I haven't watched a full game since the end of the 2018 season, and I honestly don't miss it. I still like to follow the team through this site and occasional highlights, but just can't see putting in 2 hours on game nights where it's at best a 50/50 shot of a positive outcome, not to mention the boredom of watching. It's just not entertaining to me anymore. I was much more enthused to watch in my years I was finishing my degree while working full time. After a 12-14 hour day away from home, all I'd want to do when I got home was throw a game on and grab a bite to eat before bed.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Yes but I believe it's a symptom of the bigger problem, which is the ownerships demand to compete now.

BT is executing to the overall strategy demanded of him.
The problem is the strategy itself.

All what I believe. I can't prove it. But that element has cut across decades and multiple GMs.

I would love to see a BT executed re-build.

Wow. Execute BT and rebuild?

That took a dark turn

[SebC]

Originally Posted by gallione11

Honestly, if you find that watching this team or just hockey in general, is not a positive experience, consider stopping.

I curse the flaws of my favorite things far more than those that I dislike entirely, and thus simply never engage with.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Yes but I believe it's a symptom of the bigger problem, which is the ownerships demand to compete now.

BT is executing to the overall strategy demanded of him.
The problem is the strategy itself.

All what I believe. I can't prove it. But that element has cut across decades and multiple GMs.

I would love to see a BT executed re-build.

Hmm, I think that absolves BT a little too much. Being a "compete now" club and building a pool of talent and having a succession plan via drafting are not mutually exclusive.

[topfiverecords]

Missed opportunity to title the thread The Airing of the Grievances. I’ve got a lot of problems with you people!

Not particularly frustrated in any capacity with the current team.

[Strange Brew]

I just can’t bring myself to believe that Treliving wanted to be patient and build through the draft and ownership refused to let him do it, telling him to focus on UFA’s and trading picks for current NHLers.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

But they have been drafting for skill no? Monahan, Bennett, Gaudreau, Tkachuk...

Jankowski will go down as the worst 1st rounder however...

Janko is far from the worst Flames first rounder ever. Which isn’t really a flex when you think about it.

[Spinach]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Home run swings. Every. Pick.

My strong hypothesis is that over the long-term you will be better off.

Yeah, especially in the later rounds, except when you're just filling out your organization for depth players. You may end up with a Pavel Datsyuk or Theo Fleury, so taking guys with the most offensive upside would usually be the way to go. Again, teams do obviously need to pick depth or defensive players, so I don't mind the occasional safe pick. But for the most part, you swing for the fences. Scoring goals is, as they say, the hardest thing to do in the NHL, and the hardest thing to do is finding players who can create opportunities for such.

[Philly06Cup]

Flames fans at the Saddledome:

Stop doing the wave in a close hockey game.

Learn to yell "Oi" to the rhythm of the Flames goal song.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

the shame police after hearing about this thread

[gamesaver]

My frustration? The Markstrom singing. But not because he sucks at hockey right now. Because they signed him for big money, long term with no-move clause but only for a one year window of contending. The writing has been on the wall that Tkachuk and Gaudreau would leave after the last run. It felt like now or never. Lots of fans around here wanted to start a full rebuild after the core was gone. But the Markstrom signing has tied their hands. How do you rebuild when you have just singed a Vezina runner-up for several seasons? I am pretty sure part of the deal was the team would be competitive no matter what. Last year we dominated possession combined with tons of scoring. This year we still dominate games, but can't score as much, which is the worst scenario for any goalie. They are cold, but every goal against hurts twice as much. Markstrom has not been great, but strangely his numbers would look much better on a worse team. The situation they created for him stings. Now they probably will have to manage his workload differently, less games and less pressure, which puts the whole contract in question.

[Mickey76]

One of my frustrations is my kids don’t care. There are 1000 reasons for this that are probably not the flames fault but it’s too bad. I had kind of looked forward to sharing this with them and they are now my age when I was a hockey mad stats obsessed kid. (Really became huge fan in 86.) I could hardly wait for Tuesday because the newspaper would print a stats page for all the NHL rosters. I cared deeply about every game. When Loob scored # 50, or Lanny got 500, being disappointed when Nieuwendyk missed breaking Bossy’s rookie goal record etc. Add the team success and a hated rival. How many of us remember Vernon saving Stan Smyls breakaway and finally winning the cup in Montreal. They represent some of my fondest memories as a kid. My kids will watch the odd game with me but for the most part the Flames haven’t done much since 04 to make new lifelong fans. We’ve been a 12-20 team for 20 years. Yah!!

[ForeverFlameFan]

I find no shame in rebuilding, but ownership does. A rebuild may not work out, especially after our other “attempt” we tried doing. But imo, we have the perfect players to accelerate a retool if done properly. Instead, we continue without a young core piece to look forward to (Anderssson is slowly becoming a top pairing D for good, so we may have solved that one).

[Toonage]

Originally Posted by Philly06Cup

Flames fans at the Saddledome:

Stop doing the wave in a close hockey game.

Learn to yell "Oi" to the rhythm of the Flames goal song.

Yes! This! 1000 times this!