This team folds when faced with physical adversity. Ferland wouldn't have changed the outcome of this series, but players like Ferland can help move that needle. Flames may have out-hit the Avs some games, but they got physically dominated and off their game. Avs aren't even a powerhouse team.
Flames need things:
1) Teach their defence how to play defence. The Avs D looked way more effective at both ends of the ice. They just collapsed down low and caused turn-overs and limited the dangerous shots. Flames didn't - they allowed glorious chance after glorious chance, and if not for Smith's heroics, they would have been embarrassingly spanked 4 out of the 5 games.
2) Need an injection of physicality into the lineup. This team wilts under that physical pressure. Seriously, Gaudreau gets manhandled, and only Bennett has stepped up all series? Flames didn't have an answer to the Avs - which, again, are NOT a big scary team. No, you don't need to acquire a bunch of heavyweights - this isn't 1983 any longer. You need to find players with speed and a decent level of skill to round out your lines, or provide an answer to the other team being overly physical. Flames have Bennett, Hathaway and Hamonic. That's it.
3) Speed. Flames can't handle MacKinnon or McDavid. Then they suddenly start getting rattled and do a bunch of stupid things.
Avs had their way with the Flames this series because of their speed and the physicality. Flames started missing passes left, right and centre. It is hard to get much going when everyone starts fumbling passes.
Flames are a team that still get rattled. That's what I try to fix if I am Treliving. It doesn't make a lick of difference if you add a slow, prodding player with a limited skill-set to the lineup with experience (hello Brouwer, hello Neal). Heck, add a guy with no experience but with some nastiness, speed and size to his game. Better yet, add two or three of them. Flames need about that many.
My off-season game plan - make Monahan and Jankowski fight each other every day until they get mean and nasty. Maybe then they will play with that necessary level of compete consistently.
This team is not built for the playoffs. They are not big enough, don't have that edge to their game, and they don't consistently compete enough. They seem to wilt against teams that hate them and play them overly physical. You don't sign a bunch of goons, but you do try and get this team a bit bigger and a bit nastier to play against. You don't have to be the biggest and nastiest, but you can't continue staying as the easiest to play against physically. Avs just taught us that.
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