Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil
I get that some people will continue to say it's mainly his fault, that's a fair opinion to have, but it's old and tired. I think teams have to completely re-adjust their strategy against the Flames now that he's gone.
I also think my Bouwmeester point stands. The guy has an absolute muffin of a shot, so teams were able to cheat a forward on his side a lot of the time. Teams also knew he was guaranteed to be paired with Butler before Hartley became coach.
The much more logical (and probably correct) conclusion is that the Flames had become very predictable and stale running their offense through Iginla. Shut down Iginla, shut down the Flames. They have a much more balanced attack now.
No need to keep taking digs at the guy, he's gone and people need to give it up.
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Fair points also but I also think that the biggest contributing factor to the current Flames success is the overwhelming change in culture. Its been a long time since I've watched a Flames team play with such determination and tenacity. They're skating the whole 60 minutes and frankly, in a large part of the games played, have totally out worked the opposition.
This is because the coach is now allowed to be the coach. He lays down the plan and the
whole team follows. He's got them playing an exciting brand of hockey. We may not (and probably most likely won't) win more games than we lose but if they keep playing the way they are, we may become a contender sooner than a lot of people (me included) thought.