More than back slaps from coaches, more than head pats from teammates,
it was the Saddledome crowd that had let the Los Angeles Kings know they were
on the right track.
At various junctures of a frustratingly tight night, the Calgary Flames'
fans heckled their heroes.
One red jersey got chucked on the ice. Groans and jeers could be heard
throughout the building. And, yes, the Kings were listening.
Shacks’ Take: I’ve touched on this
before but this end of season tank job the flames are doing is the best thing
that could happen, maybe.
Calgary is an extremely average team whose best players are all on the
backside of their careers. This team
needs to find a way to rebuild and constantly striving to squeak into the
playoffs in order to get eliminated in the first round is not the way to do it.
With few young stars on the horizon it’s time Calgary stopped trying to
piece an almost playoff team together and actually tried to build a Stanley Cup
winner.
If I were in charge (which would be insane but could I do worse?) I
would stop selling the locals false hope, level with them that a complete
rebuild is necessary and try to convince their older players to accept trades
and start building their prospect pool.
The crazy thing though, somehow Calgary has given no trade clauses to
their 11 highest paid players. Some
genius in Calgary has given no-trade clauses to such luminaries as Curtis Glencross,
Matt Stajan, Alex Tanguay (4 more years), Mark Giordano and Anton Babchuk. Even worse, the Flames are also maxed out to
the salary cap.
WTF? Seriously, it’s time
to blow this thing up but they’ve handcuffed themselves with these no trade contracts
to average players. If you’re a Flames
fan, man I feel sorry for you but hopefully they do the right thing soon. As the Flames are currently constructed, fans face at least another 3 years of mediocrity and early golf seasons
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