Flames can be when they aren't going to the hard areas in the opposition zones and especially in their own zones. That's why they're looking in from the outside rather than in the playoffs. They've lost a lot of games early in the season due to this. The whole defensive core was pretty soft for the most part of the season. Instead of taking the body hard against smaller opponents in their own zone, they're always either standing around looking for the puck or trying to play the puck. In the offensive zone, especially the #1 line, the only guy willing to sacrificed his body in front of the net was a smaller Hudler. The second through 4th forward lines aren't soft. I'm actually more impressed with Backlund this year than all of his previous years combined. With the impressive games that they've won as a team, the team wasn't soft. So, if you look at a lot of the early losses they had, the team was much smaller and they were much softer than after the trading deadline.
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