Calgary Flames: Five New Years resolutions for 2018
By Ramina Shlah
5. Stop taking a chance on mediocre and subpar players
Listen, I LOVE taking chances on players and having them prove everyone wrong. Everyone loves a good underdog story. Like the 2014-15 Calgary Flames! But sometimes, taking a chance on players doesn’t always work out in the end and that happened this year.
The Flames traded for Curtis Lazar on trade-deadline day trade. They gave up a second-rounder in the process. The Ottawa Senators drafted Alex Formenton with that second-round pick, who’s been an asset for Team Canada so far at the World Juniors.
It’s not so much that they gave away that draft pick, but Curtis Lazar wasn’t a good player with Ottawa, and he’s not a good player in Calgary. He has a great personality and he’s a hard worker, but at the end of the day, this is still a business.
The Matt Bartkowski signing? Bad. The Tanner Glass signing? Bad. When the Flames actually trade away players that don’t fit in with the team anymore, it benefits them tremendously.
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Trading away Kris Russell gave them the pick to draft Tyler Parsons, one of the best goaltending prospects in the NHL. The trade that sent Jiri Hudler to Florida gave them the pick to draft Dillon Dube, captain of Team Canada at the World Juniors right now. Trading David Jones to the Minnesota Wild, something that gave them a sixth-round pick, which may seem like a throwaway, gave them Matthew Phillips. One of the most underrated prospects because of his size, but has been dominating the WHL.
The Calgary Flames need to stop taking chances on mediocre players and start waiving and trading away players that don’t contribute anything. They need to have some sort of shakeup with their roster – and soon. And hey, if Troy Brouwer wants to waive his NMC, that wouldn’t be the end of the world…