Sutter Didn't Disappoint

I personally was expecting Sutter to make a splash during the draft, but I didn't think he would make one of the bigger moves in the whole draft. Basically from two trades he made, one with LA and one with Montreal, he ended up swapping Cammalleri for Tanguay(a drop of nearly 2 million dollars in cap room) and also moving down 8 spots in the 1st round, but gaining a 2nd round pick next year. So some may argue that Calgary didn't receive enough for Tanguay but when you add that trade together with the Cammalleri deal I think Sutter made the flames a better team and I will be very interested to see how Cammalleri plays with Iginla. Also worth noting from these trades Calgary picks up another center, which I think would mean either Langkow or Conroy will be gone next season for sure.

Draft Day Finally Something to Look Forward To?

After years of terrible drafting by the Calgary Flames during the pre-Sutter era of management that included first round draft picks like Rico Fata and Daniel Tkaczuk, and even the rare flames draft pick that made the NHL were 2nd/3rd line players like Saprykin that ended up never really taking advantage of there opportunity's with the team. However now with Daryl Sutter making the draft day selections, the team is picking up talent in not just the early rounds but deep into the draft as well. In his first season Sutter as most know took Dion Phanuef, who next to Gary Roberts and Al MacInnis may be the one of the teams best ever first round draft picks, and that selection was made just after Sutter was giving the job as general manager of the Flames. In the following 2004 NHL draft Sutter showed his worth again making three strong picks in Chucko, Prust, and Boyd. Of the three Prust is probably the biggest disappointment so far due to injury problems, but Dustin Boyd is already starting to show he can play in more than just the world juniors(which he was one of the top players). In 2005 Sutter made probably one of his better late round picks in Matt Keetly, he tore up the WHL with the Tigers and may be the future of goaltending in Calgary if anything should happen to Kiprusoff. Also last season Sutter picked another world junior star as Mikael Backlund was the main reason Sweden won silver in last years world juniors, scoring the game winner in the semi-finals against Russia. With all this success so far at the draft there is no reason why Flames fans shouldn't have faith in management going into this weekends NHL draft(also thanks to the flames weak finish to the season they have the 17th overall pick).