Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
Peculiar you think those "people are right" when the non-physical Chicago Blackhawks (2015 vs Ducks, 2014 vs Blues, 2013 vs Kings), San Jose Sharks (2016 vs Kings), Calgary Flames/Edmonton Oilers/Vancouver Canucks (2015 vs Kings), Nashville Predators (2016 vs Ducks), 2015 Wild (2015 vs Blues), have managed to eliminate the three true "Black and Blue" teams in the Western Conference playoffs for 3 of the last 4 seasons. And the 2014 Sharks and 2014 Blackhawks were a Vlasic injury and an overtime bounce, respectively, from knocking out the 2014 Kings.
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2013 Hawks had Bickell (6'4, 223), Handzus (6'5, 215), Hjalmarsson, (6'3, 197), Seabrook (6'3, 220), Stahlberg (6'3, 209), Toews (6'2, 201). Plus grinders/goons like Bollig and Carcillo. They had size, strength and power at important positions throughout the lineup. You say they are non-physical? I don't buy it. The main point however is that they had key players in key positions with size/strength. And even if those players aren't super physical, their size makes them harder to shut down, harder to check, etc.
We can do the same for the other teams. It's not about adding grinders and goons but the Flames have needed and continue to need to add some size/strength/power at important positions. Look at all those Hawks players who played important roles and had size and strength.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
The Flames being too small, too soft, all that is just an excuse for the Flames not being good enough, period, for a variety of reasons including skill, depth, goaltending, systems, and experience. The best puck possession team I've ever witnessed was built around Pavel Datsyuk, not Ryan Getzlaf or Dustin Brown.
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The Flames are too small and too soft and it's not an excuse, it's reality. Detroit has had a history of having big, strong powerful players like Holmstrom, Franzen, Bertuzzi, Shanahan surrounding their smaller, more skilled players. At least when they were successful they did
I mean how can anyone deny that the Flames are not too small/weak? What impact players do we have that are 6'2+ and 200+ lbs? Monahan who doesn't play a very powerful style and thats it. Unless you're telling me Engelland and Jokipakka and Colborne are impact players.
The Flames need more size/strength. It's undeniable. Saying we need to be black/blue is probably just a bit of hyperbole from Burke but the fact we need more size/strength/power at key positions is painfully obvious. It's obvious when you scan our roster and look at the size of the key players (
http://flames.nhl.com/club/roster.htm) and its obvious from watching them play on the ice vs Pacific division teams. With the new playoff format we know the road to the cup HAS to go through teams like ANA, SJ and LA. We don't have the size and strength to match up against any of those 3 teams.
I'm not sure how you can say we're big enough as is. It's painful obvious we aren't.