[Beazley66]

Mangiapane in Vail for shoulder surgery.

 

[ByeByeBaby]

Big decisions ahead for the Flames. It’s amazing what a difference a year makes, last year I felt like the Flames were a couple of players away from being a true contender, now I’m wondering if it’s time to push the rebuild button.

The Flames are actually potentially in a really clear position as far as this goes; here are the non-depth players:
Free agent after next season:
Backlund
Lindholm
Toffoli
Dubé (RFA)
Hanifin
Tanev
Zadorov
Kylington (on the off chance he returns from Sweden)

And then Mangiapane has two seasons left, Andersson and Markström have three.
On the other hand, Kadri, Huberdeau, Coleman and Weegar are signed for the long term, but are all 29 or older, so we can expect diminishing returns out of them; after the next couple of seasons..

Find a coach who can work with the players rather than driving them away with sourness, and give one more push -- there is a decent contender there on paper -- then blow the entire thing up either at the deadline if the team's not in an actual playoff spot, or after the season if it's competitive.

Unfortunately, Flames management seems stuck in the marginal improvement, patch-it-together, we'll-scrape-into-the-playoffs mode as they have been for decades. And I'm not sure that they want to try to sell the city on half a decade of Arizona Coyotes level hockey when they're trying to get a new arena built.

 

[Alex_YYC]

I was surprised to see the Flames stay with Sutter’s instead of Treliving, but then again, nothing surprises me when it comes to Flames management.
Treliving built a good team with a lot of talent and last season was probably a good gauge of the kind of team he built, this past year is a good gauge of the kind of coach Sutter is.
As flames fans we’re hooped

 

[UrbanRED]

And I'm not sure that they want to try to sell the city on half a decade of Arizona Coyotes level hockey when they're trying to get a new arena built.

It worked for Edmonton, maybe they should give it a shot!

 

[Mountain Man]

Edmonton tanked for over a decade! I'm not interested in that.

 

[konradiical]

I do not think you need to rebuild with this team. Boston and Dallas have shown that you can build on the fly. Sure you might have a down year or two, but if you consistently draft well, they will be fine.

Lots of guys that are in their early mid 20s that are good (Mang, Dube, Andersson, Hanafin, Kylington, Coronato, Pelletier, Ruzicka, Zary and Lindholm). We are missing that "top superstar talent" tho but have depth for days. Wolf has the potential to be that.

Then you have guys in their current primes (Huberdeau, Weegar) both who are older but not close to being old lmao and their games will age well.

As for older guys (Kadri, Tanev, Backlund, Toffoli, Markstrom), you need these veterans on every team and would rather have top end veterans who contribute to teams, than having veterans take fill in the whole bottoms 6 and take away from younger guys. Markstrom also isn't "old" for a goalie.

Backlund and Tanev are replaceable talents and will expire soon. Love Backlund, but sell high if he doesnt wanna be here.

We are not in a terrible situation as some people think. If we made the playoff this year over the Jets, nobody would be panicking.

Should focus on younger talent atm and develop them these next few years as we have a great AHL team. We have elite depth and goalie. But besides Huberdeau, we need another "elite" level player definitely. That could come from this deep draft, trade or prospects we have.

 

[Alex_YYC]

I agree that we are a pretty solid team, even though we had a bad season. I don’t know if it was coaching or just bad luck or watt but on paper this is still a good team, but we do have a lot of older players ready to move on.
Some teams are able to rebuild on the fly and win a Stanley Cup, like we saw with St. Louis a few years ago, but generally the teams who have won cups over the years have sucked badly and with high draft picks have picked up generational talent.

If the Flames don’t hit rock bottom, and rebuild they need to draft very well and I don’t see that happening.

For once it would be nice to see the Flames with some high draft picks and get a superstar or two. We were very close with guys like Matthew and Johnny, but that’s gone and now we’re a team somewhere between the middle and upper middle, but we really aren’t a contender at all.

 

[Surrealplaces]

One more year and then blow it up. I'm totally fine with them being near the bottom for a few years in order to get some top draft talent.

 

[JWhite]

I don’t see that they need to blow up the team. There is still good talent and they can compete. They’re only a few pieces of a puzzle from being a legit contender.

 

[Mountain Man]

I think they would be nuts to blow it up, give us 5 or more years of really crappy hockey with no guarantee they would be any better than they are now.

 

[artvandelay]

I don’t think there’s a need to blow up the team, sometimes teams have an off year (2020-21 Flames for example). If next season is another disaster then it’s time for major changes.

 

[Roaring Flames]

How many times are we going to say that last season was a fluke? We've been in this pattern of being in and out of the playoffs for almost ten years now. To be a contender in this league you have to make the playoffs year after year. With Huberdeau, Kadri, and Markstrom all in their 30s next season and the futures of Backlund, Lindholm, and the head coach all in question how we do in this upcoming season will likely determine whether we start a rebuild process.

 

[Alex_YYC]

I’m fine with giving the team one more year maybe two but after that pull the pin in the grenade. Really this is a middling team that had a great season last year surrounded with several mediocre seasons.
I’ve been a Flames fan since the late 90s, and it’s always been the same thing, a system of patches and plugs.
The few years that they were down near the bottom, they did manage to get some good draft picks out of it, and we got to a point where we had a possible contender but that’s gone.

 

[Alex_YYC]

I don’t think there’s a need to blow up the team, sometimes teams have an off year (2020-21 Flames for example). If next season is another disaster then it’s time for major changes.

I would say last year was more of the exception, than this year being an off season. We’ve had lots of off-seasons where’s last year and 2019 were the exceptions.

Over the 25 years or so that I’ve been a Flames fan they really haven’t had a serious contending team. Sure, they went to the cup in 04, but that was largely due to Kiprusoff.

For once, at least, before I die, I’d like to see the Flames have some generational talent and be a legit contender.

 

[Cowtown]

I think they would be nuts to blow it up, give us 5 or more years of really crappy hockey with no guarantee they would be any better than they are now.

We’re going to get 5 more years of average hockey and an inevitable rebuild if we wait. One or two more years with this core is fine, but we’re going to need a rebuild soon either way.