Quote:
Originally Posted by djsFlames
Completely agree. We're playing a slow, methodical game, void of offensive spark and instinctive creativity (except on the PP it seems, but even that's been pretty x and o'd). It's not that the players lack those abilities.
Brodie was a 40+ point player and had a top plus/minus on the team. Gio a 50 point player. Gaudreau was a PPG winger on a steep upward trend, and Monahan on a 30/30 pace, looking to be an expected pace from him. Bennett looked to be a 0.5 PPG player with a nose for the net and on the rise.
All of them have fallen off significantly. It's not coincidence.
It's reasonable to defend the fundamentals of his system, and playing a more structured game but GG's methods are clearly having an impact on several top players. I don't know what he's saying/doing/forcing on them to have this happen but this isn't just a performance issue affecting 5 players at once. Perhaps he's not adjusting his system to accommodate some individual players' strengths. The less active D (which was a pillar of strength for the Flames the past two seasons) is also having an effect on blue line numbers and overall team scoring. It just doesn't make sense to be solely on the players at this point. Unless we're just catching lightning in a bottle in the bad sense and everything's going wrong with everybody at once. But I somehow believe it's more.
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So how do you explain why we're so much higher in the standings? If all our best players have "fallen off a cliff", why have our team results been so much better?