[Textcritic]

I think the team is on par with my own expectations, which was that they would be a top-three Pacific Division team. But the surprise of this season is how tight the gap is between a division playoff berth and the #10/11 spots in the Western Conference. The Flames are but two points back of the Sharks for #2 in the division, and also only two points up on the #10 team, the Anaheim Ducks. The parity is crazy, and the fact that there are a lot of teams in the race does not mean the Flames are failing to meet expectations. It rather means that those expectations failed to account for how good the Western Conference is this year.

I think this has coloured peoples' perceptions about how good a team the Flames are.