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Originally Posted by Samonadreau
Exactly, I dont think Lightning fans are angry about anything right now. Team is stacked and rolling. Flames are sitting good too.
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The difference is that the Lightning are clearly far and away the class of the league. If they lose in the playoffs, then the better team lost. There is no one you could even come close to saying has the advantage in a playoff series against them right now.
You can't clearly say that about the Flames if the Flames play the Sharks, Knights, Predators or Jets. There's a reasonable debate about which of those teams should be favoured in a series. In that circumstance, where you've got that many teams that close to each other in terms of overall quality, you do want to try to get better.
I don't agree with the "this wasn't the year to go for it" talk. This is the best a Flames team has looked in... well, you could argue 30 years, but at least a decade and a half. If now's not the time to go for it, when? And don't give me "next year", because the stars only align for so long sometimes, and there's absolutely no guarantee next year will be nearly as good. The Rangers won the president's trophy in 2016; the next year they were 9th. In 2016, Dallas was 2nd in the NHL; the next year they were 24th. In 2017 Chicago was first in the west; last year they were third worst. Last year MIN and ANA were 8-9 in the league; this year they're 18th and 28th.
I'm not saying that the Flames are those teams or will experience a precipitous decline (although Dallas should perhaps be a bit of a cautionary tale), but they're 2nd in the NHL right now. They're outstanding. There's no guarantee they'll still be that level of contender from year to year even if they're still a good team. Hard to position yourself much better than best in the conference... Take your swing when you're at your peak, is my view.