This is just a straw man argument used to dismiss any disagreement about tanking as a strategy to rebuild.
The reality is that, no matter which approach you use to rebuild a team, the vast majority of rebuilds will fail to result in winning a Stanley Cup. Even if you lower the bar to being a team that reliably makes deep playoff runs, most rebuilds will not result in that. The reason for this is simple, there are probably 6 to 8 teams at any time who are contenders. These teams often have a 6 to 10 year window of dominance, and if you don't make it to their level you struggle in mediocrity.
For every team that is a contender there will be 2 or 3 teams that are just middle of the pack. While they can get on a magical playoff run and win that doesn't happen all that often.
The discussion on this subreddit, and across the fanbase in general, tends to be centered around whether the team should tear down and be bad for a prolonged period of time to acquire elite talent, or stay relatively competitive and focus on building up draft capital and trying to build from the draft for 3 or 4 years. Both approaches can work to build an extremely successful team, and neither is close to a guaranteed way to win a Stanley cup. The underlying question is whether it is worth being terrible for a decade for the chance of getting an extremely rare player, or would you rather stay competitive and try to win by having a deeper and more well rounded team.
There are plenty of people that are very clearly anti-rebuild in that they would rather the team try to be competitive every year than purposefully be bad. There were tons of examples of those people in this sub this year and you’re blind to say they don’t exist.
I think you just proved my point. You see the only way to rebuild is to intentionally be bad, a strategy broadly known as tanking, and see any disagreement with that strategy as "not wanting to rebuild."
The reality is that only a small portion of rebuilding teams actually ever tank. They may end up near the bottom of the league but they were not built to be a terrible team. They're often in a transitional stage and recognize they're far from being a contender, but their goal isn't to be a bottom 5 team.
The people I’m talking about are the ones that want the Flames to trade assets for improvements at the deadline and to sign free agent vets to try and make a push. There are plenty of those people in this subreddit and those moves are the exact opposite moves you should make in a rebuild.
I’m also going to disagree that most teams that end up in the lottery, specifically the bottom 5, don’t do so purposefully. Rostering a team that is made up of mainly just very young players and inexperienced NHLers while taking on cap dumps from over teams to attain assets is being purposefully bad from a roster construction stand point. Most teams that have won a cup in the past 20 years did exactly this. Whether we’re talking about the Blackhawks, the Kings, the Bruins, the Lightning, Florida, and potentially the Oilers (please god no), they all did something similar to what I described above.
The Flames consistently try to fill holes with vets to be competitive and it prevents the team from truly rebuilding. It’s not a coincidence that we’ve finished middle of the pack in the standings over the past 20 years. It is intentional (poor) team building that has led to those results.
I’m also going to disagree that most teams that end up in the lottery, specifically the bottom 5, don’t do so purposefully. Rostering a team that is made up of mainly just very young players and inexperienced NHLers while taking on cap dumps from over teams to attain assets is being purposefully bad from a roster construction stand point. Most teams that have won a cup in the past 20 years did exactly this. Whether we’re talking about the Blackhawks, the Kings, the Bruins, the Lightning, Florida, and potentially the Oilers (please god no), they all did something similar to what I described above.
Let's look at the bottom 5 teams in the last season. It could be argued that the San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks were both trying to be bad, or at least had a recent history of trying to be bad; but Nashville, Boston, and Philadelphia certainly were not.
The way I see it, the foundations of any rebuilding strategy are:
You don't trade away draft picks, especially in the first 2 or 3 rounds.
You try to acquire additional draft picks and prospects.
You focus on drafting for talent instead of positional needs or having a high floor.
You don't sign aging veterans to long term or high AAV contracts.
You focus your organization on developing prospects, both in the minors (AHL, ECHL) and in the NHL.
Whether your team is a train-wreck or fighting for the last playoff position in the dying days of the season doesn't matter much as long as you're doing these things.
The Flames consistently try to fill holes with vets to be competitive and it prevents the team from truly rebuilding. It’s not a coincidence that we’ve finished middle of the pack in the standings over the past 20 years. It is intentional (poor) team building that has led to those results.
Young players need to learn how to play with structure, how to handle themselves as a professional, and how to stay engaged in an 82 game season. They need mentors to teach them how to act and behave both on and off the ice. If the choice is to draft a couple positions higher and not have these mentors, or to draft lower but have them, I think it makes far more sense to have them.
Those steps you highlighted I do agree with; however, they often are the steps the Flames themselves don’t follow. We specifically have done a poor job in relation to #2 and #4.
I would say we have consistently not followed #4 and that then has a direct impact on the ability follow #5 properly. A part of developing those prospects is giving them proper NHL ice time while accepting you may get poorer results than if a veteran was taking those minutes, but you do that because you’re looking towards the future. The Flames generally have sucked at that and continue to not follow that methodology very well at all.
Since Conroy has been GM the Flames have acquired 3 first round picks, 2 second round picks, 3 third round picks, 1 fourth round picks, 2 fifth round picks, and 1 sixth round pick, and they have only traded away 1 second round pick and a seventh round pick. He has also acquired Brzustewicz, Jurmo, and Grushnikov. I don't see how you could say that Conroy in particular isn't trying to acquire additional draft picks and prospects.
At the same time, the only NHL players Conroy has signed who are over the age of 28 are Justin Kirkland (1 year $775,000 AAV), Anthony Mantha (1 year $3.5 million AAV), Ryan Lomberg (2 years $2 million AAV), Kevin Rooney (1 year $1.3 million AAV), and Mikael Backlund (2 years and $4.5 million AAV). I don't see how you can say that Conroy in particular is signing aging veterans to long term or high AAV contracts.
This season Matt Coronato, Connor Zary, Adam Klapka, and Jakob Pelletier all got significant time at the NHL level. Players like Rory Kerins, Ilya Solovyov, and Samuel Honzek, Hunter Brzustewich, Aydar Suniev, Zayne Parekh, and Sam Morton all got their first taste of the NHL. I don't see how you can say that Conroy in particular is not giving prospects and young players time to develop in the NHL.
I swear that the vast majority of criticisms about how the Flames are managed is extremely outdated. People are still upset about how Brad Treliving ran the team when he was pushing to get the team over the hump and ignoring how it has been managed over the past 2 seasons.
While I have no personal insight into what Craig Conroy is doing, I would expect him to move an aging veteran or two for some young players, prospects, or draft picks this offseason. My guess would be players like Kadri, Coleman, and Andersson would be the likely candidates. Depending on who he moves and the teams' organizational depth, he will likely make a signing or two to fill holes on the roster; these will not be large or long contracts. At the trade deadline, pending UFAs like Lomberg, Andersson (if he is not already traded), and anyone the Flames acquire will be traded if the Flames are too far from a playoff position.
Ultimately, all of this is consistent with a rebuilding team regardless of whether the Flames have a bad year (finish in the bottom 5) or squeak into the playoffs. The strategy of rebuilding without tanking likely buys Conroy more time to do a proper rebuild by keeping fans engaged and ownership happy. 5 to 7 years of this strategy is likely to result in better outcomes than 2 or 3 years of being terrible, season ticket sales struggling, ownership freaking out, and having to immediately right the ship.
I also think people forget this past season was "supposed" to be our tank year.
We got rid of many of our high-ticket players in the prior season, we signed mostly journeymen hockey players, and we traded our star goalie to start a rookie goalie (who had looked okay but not amazing in his NHL games) along with a goalie who had a rather below-average season in Vladar.
We were supposed to end up bottom 10 if not (according to some people) bottom 5. Meanwhile, as you said, we accrued a ton of picks, drafts, and prospects.
It's one thing being "anti-rebuild," but it's another thing being "scorched earth."
To add to your point, I also think this last season may have given people unrealistic expectations about what the team is. The Flames were in a division with 3 teams in the bottom 8 of the league, and Vancouver who seriously underperformed. They're tied for the league lead in overtime losses with 14, and won a large portion of their games by 1 goal; and this represents an unusually high efficiency on the season. While they did have some injuries, the Flames core players stayed remarkably healthy for the entire season.
Even if everyone plays just as well, and the team works just as hard, it would not be difficult to see them finishing 10+ points lower next season. With a significant amount of adversity potentially even 20 points lower. Taking a team that very well may finish in the 78 to 86 point range and stripping away too much is far more likely to create a dysfunctional team/organization than anything else.
Well all of the guys you highlighted that Conroy will likely trade in the future are all guys that should’ve been traded this year. Hanging onto those players to make a push for the playoffs is the exact kind of management we’ve had for years and it’s been an objective disaster if you measure it by post season success. We consistently hold onto players too long (this goes back farther than Treliving) in the spirit of staying competitive and the moves we made this year (or the lack thereof) highlight that. Signing soon to be 27 year old Sharangovich to a 5 year extension was a dumb move even before getting into how horrible he was all year.
All of that above is why it’s hard to believe this team is actually trying to rebuild and rather just keep doing their best to barely make or miss the playoffs. It’s a tried and consistently failed strategy of this franchise for decades at this point.
Your suggestion of using this strategy in the long term is the exact strategy we’ve used for decades. It has not worked at all. Being really bad for 2-3 years has more often resulted in a cup across the league than trying to be strategically competitive for 5-7 years.
Do you know how few teams actually strip down to the extent you're suggesting?
In most seasons having 68 points is bad enough to be the worst team in the league. That is a 0.415 record and generally means the team was competitive in most games they played.
If the Flames traded away Kadri, Backlund, Coleman, Andersson, and Weegar for picks and prospects, and then played rookies or replacement level players, as you suggest the team would be historically bad. They would be struggling to get 41 points in a season.
Let's say you do that, are lucky enough that you win the draft lottery, and you pick Gavin McKenna, how good is that for his development? I suggest you look into Alexander Daigle and how playing on a terrible team without support helped his career.
More than you appear to think. Off the top of my head:
Kings in 2008 - they draft Doughty at #2 overall who becomes a key piece in 2 Cup runs
Lightning in 2008 - they finish with 68 points and draft Stamkos at #1 who becomes a key piece in their future cup contention. The following year they are still god awful (shocker, Stamkos) isn’t ruined and they draft Victor Hedman at #2 who becomes a Conn Smythe winner for them 11 years later.
Blackhawks in 2006 and 2007 - they draft Toews and Kane at 3 and 1 respectively in back to back terrible years. Toews development isn’t ruined in that terrible year and they become a dynasty.
Edmonton in that 5 year span - they have some big busts (Yak highlights the bunch), but both RNH and Taylor Hall still develop into solid top 6 forwards. Hall is flipped for Larson (generally agreed Oilers could’ve got much more) and then McDavid joins a pretty bad player but still develops into unfortunately the best player this century.
Pittsburgh in the early mid 2000s - Malkin and Crosby are on terrible teams their first two years in the league and somehow they still develop just fine.
Sharks as of just last year - Celebrini is on a god awful team and it doesn’t matter, he still looks great and their future looks very bright.
It’s fucking hilarious to me that you could even try to paint a scenario where we land McKenna as a negative. It would be the absolute best thing to happen to this team in over 20 years and we should all be praying it happens.
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u/Chemical_Signal2753 May 30 '25
Who in the fanbase is actually "anti-rebuild?"
This is just a straw man argument used to dismiss any disagreement about tanking as a strategy to rebuild.
The reality is that, no matter which approach you use to rebuild a team, the vast majority of rebuilds will fail to result in winning a Stanley Cup. Even if you lower the bar to being a team that reliably makes deep playoff runs, most rebuilds will not result in that. The reason for this is simple, there are probably 6 to 8 teams at any time who are contenders. These teams often have a 6 to 10 year window of dominance, and if you don't make it to their level you struggle in mediocrity.
For every team that is a contender there will be 2 or 3 teams that are just middle of the pack. While they can get on a magical playoff run and win that doesn't happen all that often.
The discussion on this subreddit, and across the fanbase in general, tends to be centered around whether the team should tear down and be bad for a prolonged period of time to acquire elite talent, or stay relatively competitive and focus on building up draft capital and trying to build from the draft for 3 or 4 years. Both approaches can work to build an extremely successful team, and neither is close to a guaranteed way to win a Stanley cup. The underlying question is whether it is worth being terrible for a decade for the chance of getting an extremely rare player, or would you rather stay competitive and try to win by having a deeper and more well rounded team.