Calgary Flames Monday Roundtable: Draft Day Edition

An exciting day for hockey fans everywhere: Draft Day. And this year, the Calgary Flames have five draft selections – the highest at the 16th overall pick.

Hello Calgary Flames fans and welcome to another edition of Monday Roundtable! The segment that we here at Flame for Thought bring you every Monday. Basically, I ask the writers different questions surrounding a different topic each week and we have a virtual roundtable discussion about it.

Last week, we talked about everything to do with a potential new arena in Calgary. This week, it’s going to be all about draft day.

Draft day is always an exciting day for hockey fans everywhere. I mean, unless you’re the Washington Capitals and you don’t even get a draft pick this year until the fourth round. But otherwise, it’s a fun day! The Flames have five picks at this year’s draft. The highest will be at the 16th overall pick (thanks Predators for advancing further than the Flames).

Related Story: Flames Draft Picks at the 2017 NHL Draft

Now, this year’s draft has been somewhat classified as “weak” by some people. I don’t exactly like to use the word weak because it feels kind of mean. However, the skill level of this year’s draft is rather low compared to what it’s been the last few years. Like one of our writers here, Alex, has mentioned before, TSN’s Bob McKenzie breaks down how this year’s draft will be one of the most disappointing ones in recent years.

Via TSN:

"While some of the scouts surveyed by TSN do not discount Patrick evolving into that role, the consensus view is Patrick is projected more as a second-line NHL centre and doesn’t have the same “wow” factor as McDavid, Eichel and Matthews. “He’s going to be a good, maybe very good, NHL player,” one scout said, “but he isn’t a dynamic player. His skating isn’t bad but he’s not dynamic like those others [McDavid, Eichel and Matthews].”"

Because of this, some people thought that a big possibility would be if the Flames were to trade their first round pick. They did so two years ago with their 15th overall pick for D Dougie Hamilton from the Boston Bruins. And that turned out really well seeing how Dougie’s shaping out to be a top-ten defenceman in the league.

The Flames did have two major problems to address: A starting goaltender and a top-four defenceman. Well, just on Saturday they traded for G Mike Smith from the Arizona Coyotes right before the trade freeze, so looks like they have that area covered. And now there’s the top-four defenceman issue. There are some possible options out there, but there’s also Michael Stone who could re-sign with Calgary since he did pretty decent when the Flames acquired him in February.

Actually, we did a roundtable a few weeks ago about the blue-line and the general consensus seemed to be for Stone to stay. So who knows. They could trade their highest pick, or they could not. Nobody will know until Draft Day on Friday.

But that’s enough babbling, let’s move on to the virtual roundtable discussion.

And keep in mind that I asked these questions before the Mike Smith trade, so some answers may revolve around a goaltender. Hey, we’re all human.