[Vinny01]

All this talk about the Leafs winning games while being outplayed remind me of the season with so much promise that unravelled into a nightmare for Flames fans.

The Flames entered that year with new coach Brent Sutter and prized offseason acquisition Jay Bouwmeester. The biggest question marks for the team was scoring with the loss of Cammalleri and Bertuzzi many wondered if the Flames would score. Optimists stated that Olli Jokinen would pick up the slack

The Flames opened the season scoring at a torrid pace with a ridiculous shooting percentage. They were consistenly outshot but a pp over 30% and a ridiculous amount of puckluck had the team looking deadly. Iggy had 12 goals in November alone. Entering December the team was 17-6-3 but shortly after the wheels started to fall off. .500 in December and the terrible losing streak in January caused the Phaneuf trade, Jokinen trade, Staios trade and the team missed the playoffs for the first time in 5 years. Even when the Flames were winning you could see that Brent Sutter was not happy with the way the team played.

The Leafs are a very similar team this year in terms of puckluck being outplayed many nights but getting great goaltending and a lot of lucky bounces. They are winning games but Carlyle doesn't seem too pleased with the way his team is playing. If the goaltending gets worse the this team might fall apart completely.

Another coincidence is both seasons were Olympic years.

Personally I think the Leafs are close to falling off a cliff and could spiral out of a playoff spot in similar fashion as the Flames in 2010. I doubt they make the same drastic roster overhaul but I am not convinced this is even a playoff team let alone top team in the east