Calgary Flames white road jersey logo (Zach Petropoulos, CMRU.ca)
Introduction
There is a lot currently wrong with the Calgary Flames, that stems from all parts of the organization from the players up through ownership. There is a clear lack of accountability on the players as they are being paid big money and providing lackluster performances night in and night out. The management has continually made bonehead decisions that keep the team stuck in the middle of the standings where the roster isn’t good enough to compete for a cup but also not bad enough to get any of the top prospects.
Main Issue with the team
The main issue is that the whole organization refuses to accept the fact that they aren’t as good as they think they are. Ownership believes that they have a team that could potentially win a stanley cup. Therefore Management makes trades that give away picks and prospects to make your team better now. Which leads to giving up young potential for old rental players being on the roster for a short amount of time. This has been an ongoing cycle from the organization for years and it has gotten to the point where the flames have been in no mans land year after year after year.
How to correct their mistakes
What Calgary needs to do they should have started 2 years ago when Tkachuk asked for a trade out of Calgary. They should have used him to bring in young assets and picks especially with the talent that was available in the draft that season. When a generational player in Connor Bedard is available in that year’s draft it is the perfect time to hit the reset button especially with your star players wanting to leave your team. They messed up with that trade especially given the lack of impact they got from the players in return but they have an opportunity to correct that mistake and hit the reset button now. The Flames currently have multiple players who will become unrestricted free agents after this season so they need to accept their losses and trade these players away, get picks and young assets back in return and play the young guys for the rest of this season and going forward with next year and onward. The impact of young players is huge as they finally made a step in the right direction and got Connor Zary in for a game and he made an instant impact with a goal 6 shots and chances around the net for a few more goals. This is something that the good dynasties have done in the past where organizations draft good and accept being bad for a few years to build up a long more sustainable future success for the club.
Conclusion
They have good prospects and have the opportunity to get more. All they need to do is accept where they are, trade away the guys who won’t be back next season and set yourself up for long term success.
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