Why are the Flames a better organization?

[NewBoysClub97*]

They have said multiple times that they are not using Ortio and Hiller and Ramo are their two guys.. We will see if they change that right away.

 

[NewBoysClub97*]

In hindsight, I'm happy we didn't land Hamilton and then back the Brinks truck up for him.

He's looked terrible so far. Actually I don't think terrible is a strong enough word. Out of control tire fire maybe?

That 4th goal, he turns around and hangs back against the cross bar like he is having a drink leaning against a bar counter by the time the goal goes in ha ha. That was downright hideous.

 

[MinisterOfSinister]

Discombobulated defense, extremely weak secondary scoring, and a goaltending controversy.

Keep it up Calgary, it looks good on you.

 

[MinisterOfSinister]

That 4th goal, he turns around and hangs back against the cross bar like he is having a drink leaning against a bar counter by the time the goal goes in ha ha. That was downright hideous.

On Backstrom's goal, I could almost hear him politely say...

"Excuse me, pardon me, scuse me..."

...as he walked around Calgary's vaunted D.

 

[RipsADrive]

Toews 2.0 has really been MIA.

Brodie really is an important part of that team so I'm interested in seeing his effect on the team once he's back.

 

[victor]

Wow, this thread really turned...

Might be the best "knee-jerk reaction" thread of all time.

Calgary regressed to the mean.

 

[oobga]

Because nobody wanted to be GM in Edmonton including Lowe himself.

That's not true at all. There are countless people that want an NHL GM job. Especially for a team that has a rich owner willing to spend to the cap, and especially after we drafted 1, or 2 or 3 1st overall picks. Do you have any idea what kind of a career springboard it would be for people in the hundreds of management jobs around the league, that wish they could climb to a higher positions, to become an NHL GM for even the crappiest team with no fans?

I never once heard of Lowe interviewing a single person to be GM that wasn't someone he already knew and felt he could trust. There would have been plenty of people to choose from if he was ever willing to hire someone that wasn't his buddy.

 

[harpoon]

And Lowe himself said decisions were made as a group and every big decisions still had to go through Lowe and Katz. There is no way Tambo would have been allowed to trade a top pick, or spend big money on UFA's when we were in Lowe's mandated tank period where we were trying to get #1 picks. The mandate to tank is what started the downfall of the team. The loser culture started with Lowe's decisions that losing over multiple seasons was the fastest way to start winning again.

As soon as you can provide some evidence to back up the assertion that it was "Lowe's mandate" etc, then I wish you would post it up on the board. Absent proof, no one will be able to convince me that Kevin Lowe of all people decided to lose on purpose for five years.

The far more reasonable conclusion is that it was "Katz's mandated tank" and Tamby was Katz's chosen wheel man for the mandated tank. Its all on Katz imo. The wheels fell off this club almost exactly on the day Katz bought the team.

 

[McAsuno]

Toews 2.0 has really been MIA.

Brodie really is an important part of that team so I'm interested in seeing his effect on the team once he's back.

Karlsson 2.0, Kane 2.0, Toews 2,0, Seabrook 2.0, Keith 2.0. Flames are the future blackhawks! Laughable threads in the off season.

 

[oobga]

As soon as you can provide some evidence to back up the assertion that it was "Lowe's mandate" etc, then I wish you would post it up on the board. Absent proof, no one will be able to convince me that Kevin Lowe of all people decided to lose on purpose for five years.

The far more reasonable conclusion is that it was "Katz's mandated tank" and Tamby was Katz's chosen wheel man for the mandated tank. Its all on Katz imo. The wheels fell off this club almost exactly on the day Katz bought the team.

Not 5 years, but when MacT was hired Lowe said we were in year 3 of his plan and berated the media person who dared to question him for being impatient after ONLY 3 years of his plan.

Years 4 and 5 of his plan with Mr. Boldness they fully intended to win. Of course an epic failure ensued. I think Katz gave his full trust to Lowe. Lowe saw what the Pens and Chicago did and felt he could do the same. Got addicted to getting high picks for a few years and then thought it would be easy with his EMBA buddy to flip on the "Winner" switch and take off in 13/14.

 

[oXo Cube]

Calgary looks an awful lot like a lot of recent Oiler teams right now.

One pretty decent forward line, but a garbage bottom 9, 2 below average defenders plus 4 liabilites, and 2 backups in goal.

Not sure it's going to last but I'm enjoying the ride

 

[harpoon]

Not 5 years, but when MacT was hired Lowe said we were in year 3 of his plan and berated the media person who dared to question him for being impatient after ONLY 3 years of his plan.

Years 4 and 5 of his plan with Mr. Boldness they fully intended to win. Of course an epic failure ensued. I think Katz gave his full trust to Lowe. Lowe saw what the Pens and Chicago did and felt he could do the same. Got addicted to getting high picks for a few years and then thought it would be easy with his EMBA buddy to flip on the "Winner" switch and take off in 13/14.

Yes, I don't necessarily dispute any of that (although you obviously hate Lowe a lot more than I do).

Still, you haven't explained to me why I should believe that Kevin Lowe, who bled for the crest, would come up with the great idea to lose on purpose. I mean on the one hand people want to say he is a prideful, arrogant ***, but then they want me to believe that a prideful, arrogant *** would purposely make himself the laughingstock of the league. How does that work?

I'm just talking now about the idea to tank, and who came up with it, not the incompetence etc you get into above. Doesn't it seem strange to you that the Oilers who had scrabbled and scraped to maintain respectibility, under Lowe's leadership, on an EIG budget, for years would suddenly go into a tank on the day Katz (one of the richest guys in Canada) bought the team?

Doesn't seem strange to me because Katz doesn't care about the crest. He cares about the business. And only from a business perspective was the tank a good idea. It was a damn good idea from a business perspective.

I think Lowe would never willingly bring shame on the crest (I say willingly). I'll let you be the judge as to whether Katz would bring shame to the crest in order to make a couple hundred million and stock the cupboard with draft picks for his shiny new arena. Its the kind of plan only a business man who didn't know squat about hockey would come up with.

Lowe did what he was told. So did Tamby.

 

[Dorian2]

Man Hamilton blows. The flames are looking absolutely awful. I would love it if they just nose dived this year while mcswag and the oilers improve greatly

Is this refering to McDavid or McLelland? I need to know for certain reasons that may become apparent later.

 

[Raoul Duke]

The Oilers sucked...badly. Worse than any other NHL organization the past few years..
As you said though that was in the past.

I think we can all agree though that looking forward is the only enjoyable option at this point in time.

So maybe we keep this thread alive for no other purpose than to thoroughly enjoy any future struggles the Flames have.

Oh, I didn't know it was going to turn into a flames trashing thread. I'm good with that.

 

[Bangers]

Yes, I don't necessarily dispute any of that (although you obviously hate Lowe a lot more than I do).

Still, you haven't explained to me why I should believe that Kevin Lowe, who bled for the crest, would come up with the great idea to lose on purpose. I mean on the one hand people want to say he is a prideful, arrogant ***, but then they want me to believe that a prideful, arrogant *** would purposely make himself the laughingstock of the league. How does that work?

I'm just talking now about the idea to tank, and who came up with it, not the incompetence etc you get into above. Doesn't it seem strange to you that the Oilers who had scrabbled and scraped to maintain respectibility, under Lowe's leadership, on an EIG budget, for years would suddenly go into a tank on the day Katz (one of the richest guys in Canada) bought the team?

Doesn't seem strange to me because Katz doesn't care about the crest. He cares about the business. And only from a business perspective was the tank a good idea. It was a damn good idea from a business perspective.

I think Lowe would never willingly bring shame on the crest (I say willingly). I'll let you be the judge as to whether Katz would bring shame to the crest in order to make a couple hundred million and stock the cupboard with draft picks for his shiny new arena. Its the kind of plan only a business man who didn't know squat about hockey would come up with.

Lowe did what he was told. So did Tamby.

You make some decent points (and this is just my speculation), but I think the Pronger and Heatley (and to a lesser extent Lupul) debacles really had an impact on Lowe, and he realized that in order to succeed, the team needed to focus on drafting and development.

His two biggest failures happened with hiring Tambellini and Lowe (although I still maintain Tambo did what he was brought in to do), but he's made some intelligent moves on the organizational side of things (Oil Kings, re-establishing a farm system, helping with the new format of the AHL,...).

 

[oobga]

Yes, I don't necessarily dispute any of that (although you obviously hate Lowe a lot more than I do).

Still, you haven't explained to me why I should believe that Kevin Lowe, who bled for the crest, would come up with the great idea to lose on purpose. I mean on the one hand people want to say he is a prideful, arrogant ***, but then they want me to believe that a prideful, arrogant *** would purposely make himself the laughingstock of the league. How does that work?

I'm just talking now about the idea to tank, and who came up with it, not the incompetence etc you get into above. Doesn't it seem strange to you that the Oilers who had scrabbled and scraped to maintain respectibility, under Lowe's leadership, on an EIG budget, for years would suddenly go into a tank on the day Katz (one of the richest guys in Canada) bought the team?

Doesn't seem strange to me because Katz doesn't care about the crest. He cares about the business. And only from a business perspective was the tank a good idea. It was a damn good idea from a business perspective.

I think Lowe would never willingly bring shame on the crest (I say willingly). I'll let you be the judge as to whether Katz would bring shame to the crest in order to make a couple hundred million and stock the cupboard with draft picks for his shiny new arena. Its the kind of plan only a business man who didn't know squat about hockey would come up with.

Lowe did what he was told. So did Tamby.

Lowe really did try to build something after that 2006 run. But I think he just gave up after his hail mary's didn't work out trying to get UFA's and RFA's with offer sheets hoping that one of them would turn the team around in an instant like a Pronger. He was all out of tools in the toolbox. The Sather core moved on and we lost the best leaders the team had. His drafting was just awful so the cupboards were bare. What was left to do? He and the extremely limited pool of people he was willing to give the GM job to didn't have the skill and smarts to incrementally improve the team while the team wasn't quite bad enough to have a chance to win the draft lottery. The only option was to tank and try to force good players to come here because we drafted them and they're RFA's. The Pens and Hawks arguably made this an OK thing to do. They don't apologize for all the losing they did that lead to winning, so why would we if we could do the same?

Guess I make it sound like I thought Lowe wanted to tank for 3 years straight. I don't. No doubt he thought Hall could come in and be Messier 2.0 right away. We had some hot starts to seasons with Hall/Ebs, then Hall/Ebs/Nuge. I'm sure Lowe thought things were going to be A-OK many times until we were back in the position to just throw in the towel and go for another top pick. The ultimate goal for his big ego was the eventual pay off when the team would finally be good.

Lowe's ego showed in that MacT GM press conference and he and MacT were very confident that the turnaround was coming right up. Lowe had a great quote in that conference, "The Edmonton Oilers are not where they should be right now and that is unacceptable. We need to get better immediately. That starts today". MacT came in red hot talking about his boldness and his impatience and he acted like everything he touched would turn into gold that summer. Then reality hit and Lowe's need to protect his ego eventually turned into him just disappearing. I don't think he really ever understood the damage he did to the team culture with all the complacency from management under his watch while we racked up those high picks.

Lowe did try, I'll give him that. He was just never capable of accomplishing his goal. He tried every possible way to make it happen (aside from opening the door to letting qualified smart hockey minds that he wasn't buddies with to work under him), but nothing worked. I personally still think Katz trusted Lowe to build him a winner and was OK with whatever plan Lowe had. Until Lowe's plan was obviously not working at all in years 4 and 5 of his plan and Lowe ran out of people to blame for the failure. Then came Nicholson into hockey Ops.

 

[McDNicks17]

In hindsight, I'm happy we didn't land Hamilton and then back the Brinks truck up for him.

He's looked terrible so far. Actually I don't think terrible is a strong enough word. Out of control tire fire maybe?

 

[McIce Whole]

Last year was an arbitrary, they won't be as good this year and mostly everyone saw it coming. The biggest difference between the Flames and Oilers was management. We were run by bunch a of idiots. Now, I think it's different. We have the right management team, we have a better coaching staff (IMO) and we have that generational talent. Things are definitely looking better. I love watching Calgary lose and it would be nice to see the Oilers feast on the Flames for a change.

 

[thadd]

Calgary looks an awful lot like a lot of recent Oiler teams right now.

One pretty decent forward line, but a garbage bottom 9, 2 below average defenders plus 4 liabilites, and 2 backups in goal.

Not sure it's going to last but I'm enjoying the ride

This is actually horrible... wouldn't it be nice if Edmonton AND Calgary could be in the playoffs? Like how ****ing awesome would it feel to eliminate them from the playoffs?!?

Can you imagine all the dicks going into rage mode and coming to our board just to receive 101 infractions? Don't you miss this? Because I really miss it. Since the 90's came around the Battle Of Alberta has been nothing but a reference to something great that both of teams had at the same time a long time ago.

When the battle of Alberta was for real Calgary was working their tails off to get into the playoffs and they even won a cup one year.

We need both of these teams to get into good shape. If both of these teams are in good shape to make the playoffs it not only becomes a legit crazy rivalry for us, but it becomes the middle of the hockey universe again, which would be awesome.

 

[McDeathbyCheerios*]

This is actually horrible... wouldn't it be nice if Edmonton AND Calgary could be in the playoffs? Like how ****ing awesome would it feel to eliminate them from the playoffs?!?

Can you imagine all the dicks going into rage mode and coming to our board just to receive 101 infractions? Don't you miss this? Because I really miss it. Since the 90's came around the Battle Of Alberta has been nothing but a reference to something great that both of teams had at the same time a long time ago.

When the battle of Alberta was for real Calgary was working their tails off to get into the playoffs and they even won a cup one year.

We need both of these teams to get into good shape. If both of these teams are in good shape to make the playoffs it not only becomes a legit crazy rivalry for us, but it becomes the middle of the hockey universe again, which would be awesome.

I want them to do well enough so that the battle of Alberta and Alberta in general is scary good. However for at least right now, I'm okay with them suffering a bit for the summer of cockiness.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Is Brodie really that important to the defense? We heard how great Giordano was and that he would make an impact upon his return but he's a -6 and doesn't seem to be having the positive impact we were told he would. Sure he's paired with Hamilton so that doesn't help but the more he struggles the more that extension looks like a bad idea...

 

[Gret99zky]

Watching the Flames struggle and going to Calgary Puck to drink the tears is wonderful.

 

[PinSeeker]

^It is petty, but I totally agree.

The Flames were the last game of my parlay twice this week, vs Oil and last night vs Caps, and therefore them losing has made me $290 and $480

 

[Mr Sakich]

That 4th goal, he turns around and hangs back against the cross bar like he is having a drink leaning against a bar counter by the time the goal goes in ha ha. That was downright hideous.

I have seen Hamilton twice this season. First time, he was invisible. Pre-season game and I did not know he was playing till after the game

Last night, he sure looked like 2014-2015 Justin Schultz. Slight build, tallish, smooth effortless skater, won't engage physically, gets beat on most puck battles.

The worst was getting beat on rushes. Guys are not trying to go around him, they are going through him and he just backs off. Very timid player.

 

[Young Lions*]

This is actually horrible... wouldn't it be nice if Edmonton AND Calgary could be in the playoffs? Like how ****ing awesome would it feel to eliminate them from the playoffs?!?

Can you imagine all the dicks going into rage mode and coming to our board just to receive 101 infractions? Don't you miss this? Because I really miss it. Since the 90's came around the Battle Of Alberta has been nothing but a reference to something great that both of teams had at the same time a long time ago.

When the battle of Alberta was for real Calgary was working their tails off to get into the playoffs and they even won a cup one year.

We need both of these teams to get into good shape. If both of these teams are in good shape to make the playoffs it not only becomes a legit crazy rivalry for us, but it becomes the middle of the hockey universe again, which would be awesome.

I don't get this at all. I don't want a close hard fought rivalry. I want the next decade to be as one-sided to us as the last decade was one-sided to them, but worse. If the Flames never won another game against Edmonton, that would be fantastic.