[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by stang

Wow, reading that link is kind of crazy. Flames fans blasting the Oilers for about to miss for the 4th year and get to draft Hall. Kinda weird with the Flames being in that spot today. Walter was damn near bang on in that thread.

"NO i don't see this team with Kipper, Iginla, Bork, Bouwmester, Reggie EVER being as bad as the Oilers, ever"

I'm almost as loathed here as Oilers fans but nobody can accuse me of being a blind homer and it appears the current team is the latter of the two scenarios I presented.

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

The last time the Flames missed the playoffs after making it the year before they didn't make it back for seven years. Some teams have been back and forth in the past six years making it, missing it, making it but for every team like that there's Edmonton, Toronto, Islanders, Tampa Bay, etc that go into prolonged stints of missing the playoffs every year. It's impossible to say which direction the Flames will take after missing the playoffs this year.

You could say that this was just a bad year, an abberation and there is enough talent that they will put it together next year. However you could also say that they just aren't good enough and with key players getting older and no upcoming young stars in the organization that this is simply a team trending downward and teams around them are getting better.