The Flames at the Draft: Haven’t we seen this movie before?

By almost any standard, this was a dull NHL draft for the Calgary Flames. It was bound to be, with no picks in the first two rounds and little appetite for a blockbuster trade. But it was made even more dull by GM Darryl Sutter’s typical lack of imagination at the draft table.

For a guy with a dismal track record for drafting and developing players (The Hockey News noted recently that the Flames rank tied for LAST in the entire league in drafted players who are on the roster, and in the bottom third of the NHL for drafted players who are in the league, period), you’d think Sutter might be willing to try something a little different, roll the dice a bit – especially given that he didn’t have a pick until Number 64 (early 3rd round) and that he is sitting on a team that missed the playoffs and has almost nothing coming down the pipe in terms of impact-type prospects. Indeed, he had some risky yet potentially very high-return options available to him even at the late stage of the draft where the Flames were finally able to enter the fray.

Instead, he not only stuck with the kinds of players he routinely drafts – earnest, hard-working third- and fourth-line candidates – but even fell back on recycling names of former Flames. 

His top pick – Max Reinhart of the WHL’s Kootenay Ice – is the son of a former Flames first-rounder, Paul Reinhart, who was a better-than-average offensive defenceman through the 1980s. This younger Reinhart plays centre, but would appear to lack the offensive flare of his dad: He scored 51 points in 72 games last season. (In Paul Reinhart’s draft year, he scored 129 points in Kitchener of the OHL.)

The Flames seem to think he has offensive upside, but that may be more wishful thinking and faith in genetics than anything else. Unless he’s hiding something that no one has seen yet, kids who score 50 points in junior are destined to score maybe half that in the NHL. He’s not particularly big (6’1″, 180), not very physical. Reinhart was ranked 79th by Central Scouting; he didn’t even crack The Hockey News’s top 100 prospects for this draft.

The guy picked immediately after Reinhart, by the New York Islanders, was Kirill Kabanov. Now, Kabanov has all kinds of character red-flags fluttering over him, which resulted in him slipping down the draft further than most people had expected; but most scouts say that on talent alone, he may be one of the top three or four guys in the entire draft.

Where Calgary was selecting, to still have that kind of potential sitting there, on a team that’s desperate for offensively-skilled players, this would have been worth the risk. Instead, Sutter actually chose a guy maybe 20 spots higher than he deserved to go, rather than snapping up someone who could easily turn out to be the steal of the draft.

And Kabanov wasn’t even the only risky-yet-high-potential player who had slipped down the draft board and was still available at that point. What about Jordan Weal, the 102-point scorer with the WHL’s Regina Pats (note: that’s DOUBLE what Reinhart scored, playing in the same league), whose only knock is that he’s not very big (5’9″, 162)? Or Stanislav Galiev, a highly skilled Russian playmaking centre who notched 60 points in 67 games with Saint John of the QMJHL?

In fact, Galiev was still available when the Flames made their second pick – Joey Leach, also from Kootenay, a big, stay-at-home defenceman who managed 26 points in 70 games. Last time I checked, about the only thing the Flames actually had successfully developed on the farm were solid stay-at-home defencemen. So, naturally, they needed to draft another.

Or, maybe, two? Sutter’s third selection (fourth round, No. 103 overall) was John Ramage – son of former Flame Rob Ramage, who had been a first-overall pick in the 1979 draft. The younger Ramage plays at the University of Wisconsin, and played for the U.S. junior team that won the gold medal at this year’s World Juniors. Again, unlike Daddy, he’s not much of a scorer (11 points in 33 games), but he works his tail off and is considered more a shutdown-type d-man – yet at 6’1″ and 184 pounds, unlikely he’s big enough to fill that role in the NHL.

The Flames’ fourth pick – Bill Arnold, a centre with the U.S. under-18 national development program – did look like a bargain at No. 108 overall, as most draft lists had him pencilled in as many as 50 picks higher. He did score 23 points in 26 games last season, but scouts consider him more of a checker at the NHL level. He’s a typical Sutter kind of guy – works hard, wins battles and plays tough, but below average with the puck.

It’s entirely possible that all four of these guys will make it to the NHL. Unfortunately, it’s also possible that none of them will have much impact; they all look destined to reside in the bottom half of an NHL roster. And they look a lot like the sorts of players the Flames already have.

It’s too bad. Sutter had a chance at getting something more. Instead, he chose more of the same.