The last team to win the Stanley Cup without a few years of immediate playoff experience were the Carolina Hurricanes (fair to say that was a bit of an unusual year to begin with). The Blackhawks only had one year of playoffs before their first cup, but they won 2 rounds that year.
Before that, it was the '94 New York Rangers, who missed in '93, but had won 2 rds in the prior 4 seasons (they'd actually made playoffs 13/14 years before '93, but of course fewer teams in the league)...
Flames have won 0 out of 4 playoff games in the past 3 seasons. Of course we want to go as far as we can, but it would have been essentially unprecedented for this team to actually win the Cup this year
Sometimes the skaters need to bail out the goalie. Sometimes the goalie needs to bail out the skaters. One or both of these will be lacking when this run ends, but barring a sweep/5 game loss in the first round, this season will be an unequivocal step in the right direction. We can bitch about goaltending if we want, but it's almost certainly not going to be the main thing that costs us a legit 'chance at the cup'.
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