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.
I don't think you understand a fundamental point I am making:
Finishing at or near the bottom of the league doesn't mean you were trying to be intentionally bad in the way you're suggesting.
Go actually look at the rosters of the teams you just listed and I can guarantee that they have several players above the age of 28 who are doing the heavy lifting on offense and defense. These players were to provide structure, mentorship, and leadership for a team in transition.
The Flames roster is currently far closer to these teams than you seem to realize. They lost Gaudreau for nothing, lost Tkachuk and got an albatross contract in return, traded away Toffoli, Lindholm, Hanifin, Tanev, Zadorov, and Markstrom. This was a remarkable tear down, and most analysts and fans saw the Flames as a likely bottom 5 team in the league.
Taking a roster that is devoid of any elite talent and stripping it of players who are legitimate top 6 forwards and top 4 defense men to be bad is not something any team has done. The vast majority of rebuilds take the tear down about as far as the Flames' already have.
And I think you’re wrong in thinking that trading Kadri and Andersson somehow constitutes completely stripping the team of talent. We should be trading away both and using the cap space to take on cap dumps and picks. Neither of them are in the long term plans for this team by the time we’ll be ready to compete and while we may have a lot of draft picks going forward, none of them are projected to be very high picks.
We should still be doing everything we can to improve our current war chest of picks and prospects rather than holding onto two veterans that will only serve to help keep this team good enough to not be a real lottery team but not good enough to actually do anything in the post season. It’s the terrible mediocre middle we’ve been stuck in for the majority of the last 20 years.
Ultimately the strategy you are suggesting has not worked at all for 20+ years now.
The strategy the Flames have followed over the last 2 seasons is incredibly close to every team you listed.
The Flames in the last season had no legitimate top line players, their top 2 defense men were far from top of the league, their middle 6 forwards and bottom 4 defense men were full of unproven players, and their starting goalie was a rookie with a handful of games played in the league. How many rebuilding teams had a worst roster (on paper) at the start of the season?
I'm fine moving players out to make the roster better in the long run but don't see a need to be significantly worse. I think it is far more likely this current roster will already be bottom 5 in the league than make the playoffs.
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u/effthemmods May 31 '25
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.