A good reminder how the full rebuilds can literally pause a franchise for half a decade.
...and they're still terrible. Using a top 5 (or 6 what ever it was) on Reinbacher was also a reach. Yeah you need d-men, but Michkov is right there you dolts. When do people actually see Montreal taking off, they got their first overall player, they got Demidov, they were able to hit on Caufield, they hit on Hutson and have Suzuki but they're still a rubbish team. They're second line is Jake Evans and Alex Newhook for crying out loud LOL
The Flames are lucky in that they at least have a stud goalie who can be part of our foundation for 10+ years and I think our defensive prospects are better than most in the NHL. Whereas some of these teams need like 5+ drafts to be even mildly competitive; Ducks have been drafting high for years, have multiple top 3 picks on forwards (Carlsson and McTavish on the roster, Senneke as a prospect), traded for Cutter Gauthier and still can't score to save their lives, they barely average over 2 goals a game.
Meanwhile Flames depth gave us two 30 goal guys last year in Coleman and Gogovich. You need the top picks to get your star players, but without depth you're just another Buffalo or Edmonton pre-McDavid, useless teams with no depth. That's why Conroy isn't selling the entire team for picks, it takes years to get that depth back. Chicago tried this off-season by signing a bunch of guys, they're still awful.