Quote:
Originally Posted by nik-
He's not a sidekick on this team, and that's why we won't be contenders. You can absolutely win with him, but you'd better have some other forwards that are better and more impactful. It's not his fault, the team just isn't good enough.
|
Yeah I understood what your point was, but it still doesn’t make sense. Do the Oilers need to find a better forward than McDavid to be a contender as well? The Flames don’t need a better forward than Gaudreau, what they need are more players like Gaudreau. Guys who can make other players around them better or help carry the load when the top line is shut down.
Last season, if the top line didn’t score, we didn’t win. Singling out our best player for this team’s lack of success is such cop out. I’d blame the rest of the forwards or the GM for not finding him enough support. It’s like the Iginla-Kiprusoff era all over again. We’ve been a 1 line team for years and only until this past summer has it been addressed.
The way I look at is, Gaudreau plays 19 minutes a game or approximately 30% of the game. He and his line do their part to help the team win the game, but games are typically being lost in the other 70% of the game. The 3M line can quite often be just as effective as the 1st line, but last season there was definite regression from their 16-17 performance which contributed to the failure that was the 17-18 season.