Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
The Flames were soft by design of the coach as there's plenty of large bodies on the team. They were purposely amongst the bottom of the league when it came to taking penalties and played a strategy based on quick transition over grinding things out ion the boards. This wasn't Darryl Sutter's Flames that were relentless in their puck pursuit and really that type of play simply isn't going to suit guys like Gadreau, Monahan, or Brodie. There's nothing wrong with the makeup of the roster outside of a lack of skilled wingers and a shutdown defenseman and the reason they are where they are today is because they are still a rebuilding team so comparing them against fully cooked teams like Chicago, St. Louis, LA, etc is apples to oranges. This notion that they need to start adding these hulking bodies is ludicrous. I'm not saying that big players can't be skilled but unfortunately those players typically get picked before the Flames get to use their first pick unless they want to reach for more Hunter Smith's.
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Agree that the Flames played soft by design this year. That much will change.
As to the bold, what's ludicrous is your assumption that getting bigger and harder to play against means adding a bunch of hulking bodies (at the expense of skill).
The best teams in the west are more skilled AND bigger than the Flames. The Flames have to improve on both fronts, though the size gap is bigger. And yes, style is a part of that (and it's being addressed).