Countdown to draft day - Calgary Flames

Calgary was one of those teams that started in one city and ended up in another. Calgary began as the Atlanta Flames and it was in 1980 when the move occurred which brought the Flames to Calgary. Atlanta’s first ever pick was certainly better than Calgary’s first ever pick. Atlanta chose Jacques Richard (no relation to Henri or Maurice) and Calgary chose Denis Cyr (no relation to Paul). I don’t believe you will ever see stats vary as much as they did for Richard.

In 1979-80 Richard spent part of the season in the minors and had 3 goals in 14 NHL games. The following year (80-81) he was a 50 goal man with 103 points. Then in 81-82, he was down to 15 goals and 41 points. Then in 82-83 he was back in the minors again. All I have to say is; did he sell his soul for a 50 goal season? That is just really strange!

- taken from hockeydb.com

When it comes to bad drafts, Calgary has had a couple of candidates of late. If you add up the total number of games played from the 05 and 06 drafts it would add up to 25 games. In fact, no one from the 06 draft has played in the NHL yet. But I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. So my choice for worst draft is the 1997 entry draft. In this draft, Calgary had the 6^th overall pick and rather than select Marian Hossa, Dan Cleary, Sergei Samsonov, Brenden Morrow or any other future NHL player for that matter, they selected Daniel Tkaczuk who is currently a member of the Nottingham Panthers.

Daniel played part of one NHL season and had 11 points in 19 games, but he could never crack a NHL lineup again. By now, he has probably played in more countries than the Harlem Globetrotters and the Flames are probably wishing they hadn’t wasted 10 picks in the draft on players not named Brian Campbell. That’s right, the Flames actually had 10 picks in that draft before Brian Campbell was selected in the 6^th around by Buffalo. So I think this qualifies as the worst draft in Flames history.

- taken from hockeydb.com