Calgary Has Questions Heading Into Long, Frustrating Offseason

The Calgary Flames clearly underachieved this season. There's no denying that at all. Mike Chen at SBN's From The Rink tried to sum up the problems faced by the Flames and general manager Darryl Sutter this season.

The fact that Dion Phaneuf was traded this season was surprising but not entirely unexpected given the rumor mill. However, the fairly light return was pretty shocking -- along with the giant extension Sutter gave Matt Stajan. The Olli Jokinen move was similar. It wasn't surprising that they moved the underachieving UFA-to-be, but the return was a strange combination of an overpaid healthy scratch (Ales Kotalik) and a woefully underperfoming scoring forward (Chris Higgins). The lack of return value for these players raised flags that Sutter had lost touch with the right way to build his roster, and maybe it was simply his failure to adapt to a game that had evolved past the grit-and-goaltending style that got them to the Stanley Cup final ages ago.

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