Im surprised no one has congratulated VF for the photoshops, which make the article in my opinion.

Capped out.Not likely. Bulin will be off the books. Horcoffs contract gone. Gilberts 4 million a year gone. Hemsky will be gone and his 4-5 million per.Sourays 2,75 million gone. I'm counting what 23 million off the books by the time Hall and company start looking for thier second contract. Klefbom??? Who is he. A late first round pick who hasn't played a game in the NHL. Whitney. With 2 feet he'll put up 45 points this year.I would rather a stay at home d corps who can crash and bang. Oh wait that is what we are building. Whitney 6-3. Peckham 6-2. Petry 6-4.Sutton 6-6. And the band played on.Bulin is our biggest issue. I agree we need an upgrade in net. But don't 16 other NHL teams? BTW when is Kipper going to retire. Who do you have as his backup???

So the cap went from $39M to $64M in 5 years and you believe that its a stretch to go from $64-70M in 3 or 4 years? I underestimated for that reason that I wasnt making it unrealistic.

I expect this CBA negotiation to be about contract structures more than the cap. The last CBA worked well for everyone, the main sticking point is cap circumvention.

Id say that Im already being generous in the salaries above. Iginla set the bar at 7M, very few players still are over that, 4 or so years layer.

@RexLibris

I can easily chirp the flames, Its called a rivalry for a reason. I dont like their team, its nothing personal, ill still go for a beer with a flames fan whose a good sport

I wasn't really thinking of you EcB, but the yahoos I read on other forums (read: HB). Don't get me wrong, my dearest hope is for the Flames to spend an eternity in sporting limbo, never too good, never too bad. Perpetual mediocrity. Like you said, it's nothing personal, but when the comments get personal that's when I draw the line. Like Mr. Kinney's article about the arena debate last week, it was over the top and unprofessional, even for a fan site.

I think you're probably right about the cap-ceiling, but there's one aspect that nobody has mentioned yet: with the cap-floor being an issue, and presumably it will to some extent in the new CBA as well, a contract like Horcoff's with a high cap-hit and lower salary, for a good second/third line centre begins to have some value to it. As long as Tambellini can work around the NMC's in it, it isn't necessarily the albatross that many people make it out to be.

I've never gone for a beer with a Flames fan, but then I've never found a bar that had those spill-proof sippy cups to accomodate them, so that's probably why.

LOL - I believe that the domebeers come filled to the sippy-cup brim!

I agree with it all above. The oilers have zero cap restraints and a ridiculous amount of talent with which they can choose their core. For those who don't fit, package them and bring in someone that does fit. As far as D goes, they can be purchased. Yes, you need to overpay but teams are always looking for scoring young players with potential to do more. You dont need to go the UFA route.

Heck, looks at Cogs even! If a team is willing to pay him >2.5, imagine if we traded Gagner/Omark/Hemsky/MPS? Obviously those will be tough decisions and clearly they arent shipping all those guys out but when the time comes, they will see good return on assets they cant sign or dont fit

"I think drafting RNH didn't address what you need."

Monsieur, I cannot believe that you refuse to think drafting a #1 Centre is the best option over anything else. Lets say we stuck with Gagner......then we'd just have Conroy. Youre basically telling us to follow the Calgary/Sutter model. Stack up on D, have one great player and hope for the best filling in the rest of your fwds.

Then we still wouldnt have a #1 C .......You dont just fall into a #1C, you draft them. Only Joey T is a legit C that was traded.

Arguably the best playoff defenseman, Chris Pronger, has been dealt 3 times in 5 years. He alone has been traded more than first line Centres.

Point - Elite D are available every year, elite Centres are not

Gotta say Vintage, this is great. First article and taking shots at the Oil. Beautiful

Don't forget the Nylander situation. The Oilers are so lucky his wife wears the pants in their family.

Awesome article vintage. I respect how you are pointing you the flaws of the oilers fan from a legit perspective. Very professional in its approach and tonnes of fun to read

Okay, so as I see it this basically comes down to your claiming that we need to act in the present while Oiler fans are saying that we're aiming for the future. I understand your point. Cloutier, the Oilers blogger at HB, has been saying the same thing. He's argued that the Oilers should have RFA sheeted Weber or traded some assets to bring in a top 2 defenceman right now. Most Oiler fans have disagreed, especially with his Weber offer sheet idea, because we know that a top d man right now isn't going to be enough to make us a contender overnight. Whereas with patience, the prospects that we have are trending well and look to be able to become the pieces that we need, without having to trade for them. So your overpayment argument, while logical, I think will prove inaccurate. The Flames haven't been able to develop any top level talent for a very long time, outside Iginla. So naturally, you would assume that this will be the case with us as well. But the problem with that argument is: where do you think Weber, Keith, Seabrook, Suter, Yandle, Bieksa and so on came from? They were drafted, sometimes late, and developed, and now each of them plays on the team that developed them. There are also a huge number of top-end defenders who were acquired by their current team, instead of being drafted, and sometimes acquired quite reasonably. I found the same argument coming from Leafs fans a few years back when they tried to kick-start their rebuild by signing college free agents and trading for established, younger players. It's like they thought these players came out of a vacuum. They said why waste time and take chances on picks, and that theory has been pretty soundly defeated. The idea is to get as much talent in your development process as you can and see what comes out at the other end.

Flames fans have been in the "now", trading away their future in the hope of capitalizing on the present for how many years now? So I guess it makes sense that looking at the Oilers from a Calgary perspective would lead you to that conclusion. But that's why the moves a team makes can seem counterintuitive to fans in other cities, where other priorities are at the forefront of fan consciousness.

I don't begrudge any Flames fan taking a shot at their hated rivals (that's still the Oilers, isn't it?) because we're at the bottom right now or trying to poke holes in our rebuild plans. But by the same token you know that Oiler fans will laugh when you talk about having organizational depth or suggest you can attain your franchise messiah by trading weak assets or through free agency. I just have to wonder, though, will Flames fans change their tune and start backpeddling when the rebuild starts in their city?

Oh not bad, not bad, still trying* to be my sarcastic witty self here on the nations. Working construction with no computer access during the day by the time I get on I usually find all the smart stuff has already been gone through so theres no point in my going over it again, hence why I never generally have anything usefull to add to any given blog eh :P

*I did say I was trying...

Whoa man, I not trolling, and I have made a point of saying I won't do that. In fact in the past I have said that Flames fans shouldn't be as hard on themselves as they seem to be sometimes and that there are opportunities in this.

You're right about the Flames comments. I have been reading regularly and as Kent has said, there is a lot of doom and gloom. I don't think you're situation is as bad as all that, but yeah, it isn't good.

My comment about weak assets was in reference to suggestions about what Hagman and Stajan or even Bouwmeester could get in trade, not about moving the #1 pick.

Now, perhaps I do owe a small apology (don't rub it in please, this is hard enough) as I have said here that I appreciate hearing outside opinions on the state of the franchise and their direction, so for that: thank you.

No worries VF,

If you saw EcB comments regarding last weeks article about the Oilers negotiations for a new arena, you'll have noticed he uses fictional numbers to make his points.

@ all the Oiler fans on FlamesNation

I presume if VF wanted to really upset all you he would have posted this article on OilersNation.com. I share his view, I don't believe in the rebuild the way the Oilers are approaching it. I believe it is a risky approach, and look no further back than the Blackhawks for proof. Yes, the won the cup but if they didn't, they still would have been forced to break up big parts of that team. In other words, the window of opportunity is very small.

I expect VF, like myself is tired of hearing fellow Flames fans looking to rebuild in the same fashion as the Oilers. What I'm getting at is that this article is intended for Flames fans, not you.

LOL, an article by flames media who knows that their team for the next five years is going to get worse and hangs on to a 9-13 place in the western conference.

Jealous.

I have never heard of any GM complain about too much top end talent. Id rather have the problem of trying to sign to many young stars than have no prospects at all (heh calgary). Oh ya Bartschi is the next crosby right, just like kadri is in toronto. Just ask boston fans if they had an issue when they couldnt sign kessel. dont think any of them care.

I have never heard a Flames fan say they should rebuild in the same fashion that we are. I'm not doubting you, in fact I totally understand why that would be annoying. And yeah, I'm sorry if us Oiler fans are crashing the FN/VF party, and like I said, I'm not here to troll. I just find that ON and FN are the two best nation sites for articles and information about the team. CA is too self-congratulatory, JN is still getting started, and LN doesn't have as strong contributors. I get that you don't want Oil fans constantly commenting on all things Flames, but if VF posts an article about the Oil do you really think some of us aren't going to chime in?

The Blackhawks rebuild did work for that year, and had Bowman not screwed up the RFA sheets they could still be together and in a slightly better spot. But it's only a year removed from their cup win, so maybe you want to wait another 3 or 4 before closing the window on that group.

Any rebuild is risky, but that's the nature of sports. There are no guarantees. The path the Oilers have taken has a half-decent track record of assembling a good team (no cup claims here, just a good group of talent) so we'll go that route and see where it takes us. We might win a cup or two as a result, we might not, but it was a heck of a better plan that what we'd been doing before which was a whole lot of nothing.

The Oilers primary problem isn't necessarily that they are rebuilding...it's that the management group doing the rebuilding are the same rubes that crashed the ship into the iceberg in the first place.

What indications are there that T-bone and company have any idea of how to build a team around the collection of kids being terrible has got them? None from my angle. As Matt Fenwick said in January:

Here's how I imagine the conversation between Katz and Tambellini in mid-April after season's end, if Katz weren't too busy trying to get even richer in the land development business.

Katz: Well Steve, since your 2nd hiring in spring 2009, you've shown me that you can assemble a sh***y team accidentally, and that you can assemble a sh***y team deliberately. What do you plan to show me next? And please don't say something like, you can assemble a sh***y team, while on rollerskates.

Tambellini: [silence while he assesses Katz' question]

Kind of like what your management team is doing to the Flames right now. Hurry up and get really bad, draft really well and let's get the Battle Of Alberta party going. eh

Please Chinook, tell me where I used fictional evidence? In short I said to make your own decision but know all the facts prior to making that decision. I offered to send the document but have yet to receive a msg. Anytime you wanna see where I was getting my information, just ask. I also told you what to search for to obtain what I was talking about. I just dont think saying I used "fictional" evindence is fair. If you dont agree, thats fine, just say it but dont throw crap out like that please

you guys have no prospects, your best players are aging and not going to get value if they are not traded soon. I know they are going to be bad because edmonton was in the same situation in 07. and the only way to get out is to accept a full rebuild. the sooner the organization realizes it the better off the club will be.

backlund and bartschi sounds like a cup contender LOL

oh and it comes in cycles remember when we were beating your buts on route to stanley cups, edmonton will better soon, than calgary again and than edmonton and than calgary. only difference is right now we accepted that our team is bad and flames fans have not accpeted that theirs is bad too.

Vintage has truly done a great job defending his point. If I didnt know better, Id agree! :P

what has flames management done to make there team better. nothing. 8 or 9 place all the time and trading away all the future for a dismall playoff run attempt.

if you are going to blow up your team to try and shake things up, get some value out of it. dont just go take another crappy team and trade your garbage for there exact same garbage.

trade iggy and kipper and bouwmeester and get some highend picks while you can.

If you believe that Lowe is still running everything then you still believe King is running everything. Thus, its a tie and tiebreaker goes to quality of players/Avg Age ~~~~>Edmonton Wins......again

Mmmmm Pistol Whip!!!

Awesome article. I could not agree more. I have been saying the same thing. Edmonton is not attractive at all. I was there last weekend and with all do respect it is about attractive as rainbow lake except Rainbow lake acually has better fishing.

You have not included how many of these youngster will want to bolt to a city that can actually offer something. If they loose 2-3 players due to this they will be nothing more than an average team at best and will be best labelled Islanders of the North.

If Alberta was New York, Calgary would would be Manhattan (Rangers) and Edmonton would Long Island (Islanders) Where would you want to play? why do think Calgary has so many no movement clauses? Because the players like the city and would preffer to stay there.

Vintage Flame you nailed it and your photos are awesome as well!!

So many no movement clauses on quite a few guys they'd like to move...whether it's to do with the city or not still poor management.

If you've ever been to Detroit you'd know it's not necessarily about the city. If in 2-3 years Edmonton's competitive guys will be happy to be there.

One Flames fan says the Oilers will have to pay huge mo ey to now get quality defencemen. Do you mean like 6.65ish million for someone like Boumeester? And to say the Oilers did not address a hole in their lineup with picking RNH is simply shortsighted. Did the Oilers have a bonafied #1 center pre draft? No. How many star centermen trades are there these days? Next to none, only the Thornton to SJ deal comes to mind. So drafting a stud center with fantastic playmaking skills does not seem so stupid. Yes the oilers are still thin on D, but that will be addressed in the near future. And to say we are only drafting young, skilled fwds... Hartikainen is very gritty and big, Pajaarvi is a power forward, Hall plays a similar power forward game as Jarome Iginla. I understand Flames fans, I would bash the Oilers too, but you would be fibbing if you said the bashing was not out of jealousy. Anyone of you who says you would not trade spots with us are of the Sutter brethren, those infamous brothers are are what you have to thank for the 23 no movement clauses and cap purgatory you are currently in. You like to prognosticate and predict our possible cap problems in a few years? Well at least we have a prime example of how not to go about it. Cup winners are built down the middle. Ex) Chi, Pens, Det etc... Oh, wait you guys know this, you gave 3+ million to the likes of Matt Stajan. I have never felt so sorry for a guy as I do Iginla. What could he have done with a star center???

LOLOLOL. Just like Flames fans to find positives in all the no movement clauses. So while retired player loyalty will reign in Calgary with all the NMC's, Edmonton will be managed properly and winning cups. Hey, whatever floats your boat...

First off congrats Vintage! I look forward to reading your stuff & totally have enjoyed this one & the bantering with Oil fans. I truly do miss the real battle of Alberta days & we were game 7 away in 2006 against Anaheim to set up a great series with the Oil. Man that would have been fun. We hear about the no prospects digs & our prospects are better than yours as much as Oil hears about no one wants to live & play in that pit hole & we are both tired of those comments. New material & digs please. & I think you have touched on it here. Oil style rebuild versus a totally different type of rebuild here in Flame land. Which will be better? Who knows & time will tell. Heres the thing, I am a Season Ticket holder & paid lots of money to sleep through that Young Guns era before that 2004 ride of my life. The Oil are going through that & it is very hard on a paying Season Ticket holder to watch your team go year after year as a lottery pick. At some point, you want Management to make decisions to get your team to the playoffs. Preach patience all you want if you have no true $$$ invested, but I would be livid i the opportunity the Oil had to trade to fill huge holes wasnt moved on. Hell you cant tell me they couldnt have moved Khabbi with that pick & fixed 2 problems considering how cheap some very good goalies could have been acquired. Well done, really have enjoyed the posts.

Flames fans are so dillusional...You can look at the elite teams in the league and find holes with everyone!?? Pitts-no good wingers, Detroit- Questionable goaltending and old age, Chicago- poor depth and goaltending is still a bit of a question, Vancouver-No Heart when it counts, Washington-Poor Coaching and until now no goalie, and on and on I could go. In this NHL with parody ruling the day, there is no perfect formula... Edmonton will be fine...Weber will be available again very soon, not too mention the fact that when the time comes to really make a push in the playoffs, there will be an abundance of solid young offensive forwards that can potentially be traded for a young stud D-man... Now Edmonton has RNH...maybe he's 100 point guy in 5 years, maybe he's a 60-70 point guy? Who knows? But it's depth down the middle no matter how you slice it. P.S. Same goes for the goalie situation. Trades are a big part of the big picture down the road. But first, We stock the shelves with offence. I know Calgary has never been a big fan of scoring goals, so I don't expect you to understand. Have fun with Your Old Goalie, and Your 1 good player (no longer ELITE...just good) Iginla. Do him a favour and send him to Pitts so he has a Center to pass him the puck, not a Joke...Olli Cow!

Bravo Vintage Flame,

The only blog on this site that is getting any hits. Of course there's nothing like spot lighting another team to take the heat off your team.

This is a Flames site right?

Nothing like pointing out that the Oilers have way too many good young prospects to be able to afford them all in the future. What crappy problem to have. We're screwed I guess. I'm sure someone with brains has mentioned that all these future expensive forwards might actually have value and we might actually get something of value and need in exchange for them. Vintage you didn't pick a team just by random "Follow me (@edmontoncritic)" is stamped on the photos. This is a lame attempt to take the focus off the flames mediocre future. I'm guessing you're more of a Oilers hater then an actual Flames fan.

If I was an Flames Blogger I'd actually try and write something towards Calgary future. Instead of "The Oilers Suck no matter what they do" Blog.

But what ever floats your boat Vintage.

After all, ignorance is bliss

What they WERE doing. Feaster hasn't been in long enough to know what his overall plan seems to be, but to this point he hasn't made any excessively stupid moves yet. He came into a team handcuffed by the choices of his predecessor, and to be honest he's done a pretty admirable job with what he was dealt.

On a side note, this entire comment thread is borderline ridiculous. Good job to VF on stirring the pot so successfully, hilarious job by the fans who seem to be off their meds.

You're 2 for 2 VF. Both articles have stirred up some pretty good dialoge. Some good points made by both Oilers and Flames fans.

@ Oiler fans It's an interesting problem for the Oilers will be facing a couple years down the road. It seems to suggest that, unless RNH makes an emphatic statement that he is 'ready now', the oilers will send RNH back to RD and give themselves another year of ELC with RNH. Which probaby isn't a bad idea. As for the idea that the Oilers could/should've moved the No.1 pick for Shea Weber, well, I just don't (didn't) see that happening. Weber is the face of a franchise in a non-traditional hockey market. I strongly suspect the Pred's are going to do whatever they can to convince him to stay. The Predators aren't trading Shea Weber, at least not yet. Maybe a more realistic proposition is the Oil could've made a move with Winnipeg where the principals of the deal could've been No1 for Bogosian + the No7 pick.

As for the Flames I don't see, as some have suggested, that they are in the same situation as the Oilers were 5 years ago. That's a pretty short sighted point of view in my opinion. The Flames now are a better team than the Oilers where then, hands down. Another point worth making is although the Flames will have some 20-25 million in cap space next summer, that could very easily blow up in their faces. every single July 1 teams overpay to sign UFA's. If that cap space isn't utilized properly there's no gaurantee the Flames will be a better team one year from now.

what is clear though is the Flames are in the midst of a transition and it will be interesting to see if they can show 're-building' dosen't mean 5+ years of taking a walk in the wilderness.

I didnt say one was better than the other, I said they were in the same situation. the oilers had a bunch of mid quality players, (stoll, smythe, penner) lost there best d man from the year before (pronger), one really good player (hemsky), one bad contract considered untradeable (horcoff) and through bad drafting only one good prospect (gagner)

now look at calgary

mid quality (jokinen, bourque, langkow) best dman gone (regehr) really good player (iginla) untradeable bad contract (bouwmeester) one descent prospect on team (backlund) not through bad drafting but trading all away

big difference in the two in almost all cases edmontons players were younger.

'what is clear though is the Flames are in the midst of a transition and it will be interesting to see if they can show 're-building' doesn't mean 5+ years of taking a walk in the wilderness.'

that's how i see it. Call it a transition, call it a rebuild it's the same thing. The flames have replaced their management team almost entirely. They are attempting to change the entire culture of the organization. That's a change that effects the entire foundation of a team. That's a rebuild. A lot of money comes off the books next year and so there's reason to think this team could have a chance to compete next season. I'm not gonna say we're in a better position than the Oil going forward but we're certainly not in a worse position.

This notion that the flames should just blow it up and scrape the bottom of the league for a few seasons is ridiculous. The Oil and there fans seem insistent that this is the way for the flames to go; as if their management planned this brilliant strategy and exacted it flawlessly. Like Katz sent a marching order to his club to suck complete and total ass for two seasons..? The oil didn't choose to hit rock bottom that's just where they fell. Period.

Fine, you have two or three top tier prospects but they're still just prospects. It's still just potential. Call me when they do something. When the team starts winning. Otherwise, it's just the noise of a fanbase grasping to the shell of hope that their beloved hockey team doesn't finish in last place... Again!