Erik Johnson, not Jack Johnson. And that trade also involved Shattenkirk who's blossomed into a terrific defensemen.
As good as Monahan is and projects to be, teams cannot be successful building around one player. You would think people would have actually learned something from the Iginla era.
As for trades involving defensemen, who says they have to be young? The entire point of trading for a defensemen is to get one that's already mature enough to compete now, other wise you might as well just draft one and wait half a decade or so until they starting reaching they're prime. Pronger's been traded three times since the first lockout. Burns was considered a very promising defender in need of a change of scenery when he was traded to the Sharks. Ehrhoff to the Canucks, Boyle to Sharks. Ballard to the Canucks, etc.
Are there fewer trades involving top defensemen? Sure. But that doesn't mean they don't happen whatsoever, or that they can't be done in the future.
When was the last time a first overall pick was traded? And if finding trade partners is so terribly difficult, where's this magical team that's going to give the Flames a couple of significant assets for first overall going to come from?
My bad on the Johnson mixup, happens pretty often.
Who says the Flames aren't going to suck and draft top 5 in 2015 and 2016 no matter who they pick in 2014? Building around Monahan is unlikely to be the primary option anyways, and the organization's current state of asset depth is nowhere near what the Iginla era was like in its prime.
While defencemen don't typically blossom until around the age of 27 roughly, you also want them to grow with the team; providing
at least a third of the current prospects pan out, this team is not likely to hit full stride until about 2017, 2018 in my opinion. By all means, it looks like the management is trying to build a team with the following attributes: High hockey IQ, responsible, and mobile, which, if the forwards are to play with that style then the defence must follow suit. How many blueliners have those qualities would you expect to be traded to the Flames at that point without creating a hole in another part of the organization when they are trying to contend?
Look, in the end, my entire point is this:
The Flames are most likely going to be a losing team for the next 2 seasons at the very least. It's understood that a lot of rebuilding teams' major downfall is the lack of a true #1 centre or a true #1 defender/goaltender.
Goaltenders, Calgary has in spades. Even if the ones in the current Flames system don't pan out, the market for them is pretty low; decent goaltenders with upside are traded often and at a reasonable price.
Forwards, the Flames also have. Kilmchuk, Poirier, Gaudreau, Jankowski, Hanowski, Baertschi, Monahan. All of these players are projected to be top six players. Whether Monahan or Jankowski will become the next Nieuwendyk or Toews, well, we'll have to see, but that's true of nearly every prospect ever anyways, including Sam Reinhart.
Defense is where the Flames are lacking.
I'm not saying they *have* to draft Ekblad.
But I am saying they *need* to draft by positional need eventually (I'm putting it this way because I acknowledge that it's not very often that a defender is BPA in top-3 picks) and the sooner they pick up a really good one that's not as much of a project as say, a Darnell Nurse, the better the Flames will be when they enter their prime as a group and the organization as a whole will be left less wanting.
I don't want the Flames to trade away ANY future first-round picks again. I want this organization to build a truly strong prospect pool. I want them to proudly build through the draft and only trade when they need to, not because "a shakeup was needed" or "we failed to draft a player of this sort and now we have to overpay for one" ever again.
