History of Flames Transition (Rebuild/Retool) Periods

[DuckSauce]

Long time (obsessive) lurker - loved the membership drive during the trade rumour gif frenzy and it inspired me to dig up my account and actually post.

Having watched countless versions of this franchise be more or less the same bubble team I am very excited for change. An injection of youth and the excitement/mystery that multiple draft picks bring will be a fun change of pace (hopefully with light at the end of the tunnel). I am also a big fan of history - although there have been more than enough dark days in the past I thought it would be cool to share some memories of pervious transition periods the Flames have gone through, especially back in the day before the internet and CPuck.

Nieuwendyk > Theo > Iggy > Gio > Johnny/Tkachuk > ?

Some of the things I have always wondered about:

*What was it like when Nieuwendyk rumours started? Did fans want picks/prospects or an established star before getting Iginla?
*I recall writing on the wall that Theo would leave - were his personal issues well known or rumoured? What were some of the returns people hoped for before the Colorado Regehr trade?
*was the Young Gunz era doom and gloom from the start with Canadian markets struggling? The Save the Flames campaign and half of the 300 level closing suggests no. Was the term rebuild even a concept?
*Who have been some of your favourite prospects or free agent signings you thought would be stars that ended up busts? What trades really set the Flames back (or ahead) aside from the obvious MSL buyout and Savard trade?

Hoping others will share what they have always wondered about. I am sure this could have been an offseason thread but why wait!

[Jiri Hrdina]

The Colorado deal was fascinating because it included the Flames options to select one of 4 prospects: Regehr, Skoula, Parker or Abid. I don't recall another deal where that was part of the conditions.
The Flames obviously made the right choice. I really wanted them to take Skoula though.
Rumors were that the Flames pushed for Tanguay to be included in that option, but the Avs wouldn't budge on that.

[Bingo]

Looking back at old draft picks I think the three that seemed the most likely to be impact players that weren't were ....

Tkaczuk (concussion issues)
Saprykin (focus issues)
Kobasew (just wasn't that good).

In the thought they were diamonds in the rough category ...

Dominichelli and Wiemer

[FBI]

Also Rico Fata had some SPEEEEED

[shutout]

Young Guns era was the thought that you might be able to "moneyball" your way to being competitive by finding potential gems, getting high draft picks, and building sneaky team depth because you were never going to be able to afford to keep or attract star talent that wasn't under control or signed long term. Even then with doubts as Nieuwendyk had a contract and then decided he was going to sit out.

All of the transitions were done because they reached the end of the line with that core of players and not because they were forward thinking or planning on what to do next.

[Matty81]

Looking back at what I see as the three main rebuilds, lot of mistakes made. The 90s rebuild was the worst. Gilmour deal obviously just crippling. But they also gave away many other stalwarts, with a failed approach of getting a similar guy who was slightly worse that was very short sighted. Like Suter for Zalapski, MacInnis for Housley. I think vernon went for Chiasson. Gary Roberts for Andrew Cassels. Downgrade everyone with cheaper replacement vets rather than go for youth. And then inexplicably gave away declining but still star players like Makarov and Mullen for almost nothing. It was as bad a rebuild/retool as you could imagine to go from a complete powerhouse loaded with high end talent to a middle of the pack group of older players in a very brief period of time. Riseborough in particular was just incredibly bad at what he did before he gained experience but money was a big driver.

Those late 90s drafts where they were doing a second retool after the fleury team were very weak classes looking back. The flames didn't exactly cover themselves in glory but was also bad timing to be rebuilding, not a lot of impact players and a tough era to come into the league with tons of clutch and grab, and trap. I still think Tkaczuk's injury in Phoenix was the pivot point though. He had top 6 centre written all over him, that injury was devastating. Young guns era was very brief. From the time Theo left to Iginla's rise was about 3 years of darkness. And for me I enjoyed it, lot of great personalities, super tough teams that fought for each other and beat the crap out of everyone and Freddy B was absolutely outstanding in net.

Post iginla rebuild they had a much weaker team but clearly waited too long and were handcufffed by NTCs. Ran down contracts and had few buyers got pennies on the dollar for Iginla and Bouw. Another bad GM timing wise with Feaster who didn't seem to be a strong negotiator. Frankly just got a bit lucky with Gaudreau popping late after everyone passed on him in the draft and Tkachuk falling to them unexpectedly. For me the bad trade in that era that made the difference was Phaneuf even though it was well before the rebuild proper. He was a young star player with a lot of value but wasn't shopped around the league to find the best value, and was traded for quantity rather than quality and again many older players.

This rebuild has been handled OK so far in my opinion, but at some point the team needs to realize that they need to pay the price in losses or assets to add 2 or 3 real star young players. You need something to build around re: star players and we don't have that yet or have it coming. If they keep targeting average players in their mid 20s we're headed for a long stretch of mediocrity.

This draft is a big chance for us... I won't openly cheer for them losing but falling to the Sharks tonight and we are tracking for a pick in the 5-7 range in what is a very good draft. A winning streak to end the season and we could be 10 and adding another more complimentary player.

[Freeway]

The Flames had pretty gigantic structural economic issues conspiring against them from basically when the Canadian dollar crashed in the early '90s until the 2004-05 lockout. They were basically in survival mode to various degrees from the mid '90s onward.

[DuckSauce]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Looking back at old draft picks I think the three that seemed the most likely to be impact players that weren't were ....

Tkaczuk (concussion issues)
Saprykin (focus issues)
Kobasew (just wasn't that good).

In the thought they were diamonds in the rough category ...

Dominichelli and Wiemer

It is interesting to look back at what could have been if those guys hit

1997 Tkaczuk (concussion)
1998 Fata (sucked - just couldn't transition to the NHL?)
1999 Saprykin (who is modern NHLer you would compare with focus/compete issues?)
2000 Krahan (What is some of the history behind this pick? It seems he was given up on quickly - Just 4 seasons later we had not only aquired and re-signed Turek but then also ened up with Kipper just 4 seasons after he was drafted with a top 10 pick. For context, Wolf was drafted 5 seasons ago).
2001 Kobasew (Looking back at his numbers they do seem disappointing but I think his relationship with Iggy was huge and hate that trade for Stuart which totally ruined the room)
2002 Lombardi (Fata Hatcher)
2002 Nystrom (Really solid third liner)
2003 Dion

Then came the Sutter years of drafting.

Hindsight shows that there wasn't any star talent here outside Phaneuf but it could have been a decent supporting cast.

For some reason it feels like Kobasew+Lombardi = Dube+Mangi = Zary+Pelletier (could be a terrible take and I have much higher hopes for Zary and Pelts)

[traptor]

Originally Posted by shutout

Young Guns era was the thought that you might be able to "moneyball" your way to being competitive by finding potential gems, getting high draft picks, and building sneaky team depth because you were never going to be able to afford to keep or attract star talent that wasn't under control or signed long term. Even then with doubts as Nieuwendyk had a contract and then decided he was going to sit out.

All of the transitions were done because they reached the end of the line with that core of players and not because they were forward thinking or planning on what to do next.

Sounds very similar to what's transpired recently.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by DuckSauce

Some of the things I have always wondered about:

*What was it like when Nieuwendyk rumours started? Did fans want picks/prospects or an established star before getting Iginla?

In the pre-internet era, it was hard to say what fans wanted. Trade speculation and rumours were confined to the columnists at the Herald and Sun, and fan opinions to the letters section of the newspaper.

But the tenor of fans in the early 90s was that the Flames core couldn’t get it done in the playoffs. Season after season of playoff disappointments had soured a lot of fans.

This was also in the era when small-market Canadian teams were declining to second-tier status due to the lack of a cap and a weak Canadian dollar. So fans were aware that stars were pricing themselves out of markets like Calgary.

There wasn’t any real talk of a rebuild. But Niewendyk was likely going to a contender, so expectations were that the return would be mostly picks and prospects.

[Sylvanfan]

In the young guns era the league on average was pretty old largely due to demographics. There was a lot of players were mostly from the Baby boom era that ends in like 1966 still hanging around and a small group of Gen X'ers who frankly were not that good anyway coming up. Add in expansion changing things so that 16 of 30 teams made the playoffs instead of 16 of 21 type of thing and it was a hard league for young players.

Savvy vets could hook and hold and even the grouchy ass 36 year old could still man handle most 19 year olds and was allowed to do so.

So trying to go with a young team was tough because there was less focus on speed and skill, even if the 26 to 29 year old was still cheaper since UFA was after 31.

[Goriders]

I got a lot of free tickets in the late 90s and early 2000s when the Flames were hot garbage. That ended after the 04 run.

So I guess there’s that to look forward to.

[Bandwagon Surfer]

Originally Posted by traptor

Sounds very similar to what's transpired recently.

I think the problem is people treat the moneyball style approach as something you can just decide to do.

At a high level, to pull it off you need to figure out flaws in the existing ways players are evaluated, then exploit those flaws to get undervalued players.

So to do it, you first need to find the value mismatch to exploit before you can have make it your strategy to exploit it. With having this figured out first, the entire strategy turns into wishful thinking.

The other trouble is the Canadian teams are probably the worst equipt do to it because they care about tradition. It is usually the minds that can free themselves from tradition that are best able to find new approaches. In the NHL it is the American teams in less traditional markets who have this advantage.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Freeway

The Flames had pretty gigantic structural economic issues conspiring against them from basically when the Canadian dollar crashed in the early '90s until the 2004-05 lockout. They were basically in survival mode to various degrees from the mid '90s onward.

We talk about Conroy having to deal with all the issues he was left with but Al Coates dealt with that every year. The Flames at that time couldn't even afford to re-sign the Gagner and Cassels of the NHL, let alone top players.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by FBI

Also Rico Fata had some SPEEEEED

Anybody still have the Rico Fata gif?

[shutout]

Originally Posted by Bandwagon Surfer

I think the problem is people treat the moneyball style approach as something you can just decide to do.

At a high level, to pull it off you need to figure out flaws in the existing ways players are evaluated, then exploit those flaws to get undervalued players.

So to do it, you first need to find the value mismatch to exploit before you can have make it your strategy to exploit it. With having this figured out first, the entire strategy turns into wishful thinking.

The other trouble is the Canadian teams are probably the worst equipt do to it because they care about tradition. It is usually the minds that can free themselves from tradition that are best able to find new approaches. In the NHL it is the American teams in less traditional markets who have this advantage.

I would disagree with this.
I think that the difference lies in how you build a hockey team.

Conventional and traditional wisdom follows that:

First line has one or two star players that carry the team and can create goals when needed, drive play, and change the outcome of the game.

Second line is stacked with three good players that compliment each other and can hold off a first line when needed but can make up the scoring on the bottom six matchups.

Third line is the checking line. They don't need to score but are out there to keep the other teams first line in check so that your first line does not need to be going head to head against their superstars.

Fourth line is the energy line full of guys that go north-south and bang, fight, and chew up minutes without accomplishing much.



In a modern hockey "moneyball" system you would ideally have three second lines and a third line. You would not overpay for elite superstar players but would build depth throughout the lineup.

The theory being that it is easier to find and draft second line talent as well as acquire them in trades. Because they are not stars they should not break the salary cap constraints on the team to limit the talent available.

So that every line that you put out onto the ice would be able to go head to head and at least nullify the other teams top line or be able to trade chances with similar talent and then feast on bottom six mismatches. The goal in creating a team like this would be to emphasis the ability and the circumstances to capitalize from counter-punching opportunities that other teams are giving you from mistakes.

You would still be able to add star players that you get in the draft or have the chance to acquire but it would not be essential to building a competitive team. With a depth of second line talent that is easier to find and keep you can then extend out a competitive window much longer than relying on superstars and rebuild programs to add them.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by DuckSauce

It is interesting to look back at what could have been if those guys hit

1997 Tkaczuk (concussion)
1998 Fata (sucked - just couldn't transition to the NHL?)
1999 Saprykin (who is modern NHLer you would compare with focus/compete issues?)
2000 Krahan (What is some of the history behind this pick? It seems he was given up on quickly - Just 4 seasons later we had not only aquired and re-signed Turek but then also ened up with Kipper just 4 seasons after he was drafted with a top 10 pick. For context, Wolf was drafted 5 seasons ago).
2001 Kobasew (Looking back at his numbers they do seem disappointing but I think his relationship with Iggy was huge and hate that trade for Stuart which totally ruined the room)
2002 Lombardi (Fata Hatcher)
2002 Nystrom (Really solid third liner)
2003 Dion

Then came the Sutter years of drafting.

Hindsight shows that there wasn't any star talent here outside Phaneuf but it could have been a decent supporting cast.

For some reason it feels like Kobasew+Lombardi = Dube+Mangi = Zary+Pelletier (could be a terrible take and I have much higher hopes for Zary and Pelts)

to me as best as I can be honest with no retrospect, Fata and Krahn were gut punch picks the moment their names were said out loud. DT I think was going to be ok pre-concussion. Lombardi was a later pick but covered the bet even pre injury


Kobasew and Saprykin yeah too bad they didn't deliver, they were NHLers and both played (and in the case of Saprykin contributed) in the 04 run...could Phaneuf have made a difference if we could have magically aged him a year for the 04 run? we mostly needed him in the Evans games and we won that series anyways, D wasn't really the problem in the finals- esp once Lydman was back, but man margin of error was slim in the Tampa Series


Nystrom ended up being as advertised I think we all hoped there was a bit more power forward secret sauce in there but alas there was not

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by shutout

In a modern hockey "moneyball" system you would ideally have three second lines and a third line. You would not overpay for elite superstar players but would build depth throughout the lineup.

The theory being that it is easier to find and draft second line talent as well as acquire them in trades. Because they are not stars they should not break the salary cap constraints on the team to limit the talent available.

So that every line that you put out onto the ice would be able to go head to head and at least nullify the other teams top line or be able to trade chances with similar talent and then feast on bottom six mismatches. The goal in creating a team like this would be to emphasis the ability and the circumstances to capitalize from counter-punching opportunities that other teams are giving you from mistakes.

You would still be able to add star players that you get in the draft or have the chance to acquire but it would not be essential to building a competitive team. With a depth of second line talent that is easier to find and keep you can then extend out a competitive window much longer than relying on superstars and rebuild programs to add them.

This is how the Vegas and Seattle rosters were structured through expansion, and the reason they had success right out of the gate.

But it’s difficult to sustain. Vegas leveraged their young assets into stars and had more lasting success, while Seattle showed that it’s difficult to have sustained success in the NHL without star power.

[albertGQ]

I was high on these players

Andrew Trefilov
Jason Muzzatti
Vesa Vitakoski
Ted Drury
Tim Sweeney

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by looooob

to me as best as I can be honest with no retrospect, Fata and Krahn were gut punch picks the moment their names were said

Derek Morris was also a reach when they took him. He worked out, but wasn't he like 85 in Central Scouting or something like that, I remember him being a what the hell are we doing pick.

Blair Betts was a high second round pick I watched a lot in P.G. but injury also derailed him even in Juniors until Sutter traded him. He made the World Junior team twice and looked like he could be a decent third line center at one point.