When talking about Canadian NHL teams, most people tend to think of very strong hockey markets with passionate fans and an increasingly added pressure from a desire to win.

Aside from the Vancouver Canucks and, at times, the Montreal Canadiens, this season has fallen short of the expectations placed upon the Canadian teams. Two teams appear to be in trouble: the Calgary Flames and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Calgary Flames look as though they could have their backs up against the wall for the foreseeable future. A big part of their core of players are 30 years of age or older, and are seeing their production and effectiveness decrease. They have very few, if any, blue-chip prospects on the horizon, and most draft picks are not living up to the expectations they had when they were originally drafted. They also find themselves without all of their draft picks for the upcoming draft, and have not acquired any from other teams. Jay Feaster certainly has his work cut out for him after he took over the reigns from former GM Darryl Sutter, who stepped down during the 2010-11 season.

Maybe the Flames need to take a page from the Edmonton Oilers and rebuild. Although Flames fans would not admit it, they are not going to win a Stanley Cup with this group. They can still receive an excellent return on players like Jarome Iginla and Miikka Kiprusoff. Adding a young, prosperous player and a draft pick or prospect will go a long way towards rebuilding for the future before players like Iginla and Kiprusoff, are too old and ineffective to either generate a decent return, or end up retiring.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have an underachieving team so far this year, but have a brighter future than the Flames.

Going into the season, many people expected the Leafs to make the playoffs, or at the very least contend for a playoff spot. Well, so far this season neither of those predictions have happened and there is likely too much ground to be made up for anything to change.

However, the Leafs have a very young team, and have an abundance of both prospects and draft picks (excluding two first round draft choices used to acquire sniper Phil Kessel, 1 of which the Boston Bruins selected highly-touted prospect Tyler Seguin).

The one area the Leafs have to make some decisions on is the back end. They have 3 experienced defensemen all of whom could be seeing their days in the hockey capital of Canada numbered. Francois Beauchemin, Mike Komisarek and Tomas Kaberle would all be a welcomed addition to any team, even if all it adds is depth. Kaberle is set to become an unrestricted free agent at the season’s end, meaning it would be ideal for the Leafs to acquire something for him to build towards the future from now until the trade deadline in March.

So....do you think the Calgary Flames should start the rebuilding phase, and what's the next move the Toronto Maple Leafs should make?

Jordon Judge

HockeyGods