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Originally Posted by Flames0910
Boys had next to no playoff experience (Peters included). Hopefully they learn from this for next year... Need to be tougher mentally. We the skill to compete, but got knocked off our game too easily.
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That’s a weak excuse for the players. With the exception of Smith, the Flames best players were arguably the playoff rookies in Anderson, Valimaki, Mangiapane. Bennett was great too but that’s no surprise.
It’s pretty rare for your star / core players to get worse each playoff. Usually it’s the other way around. I feel like Johnny and Mony were better in their first series against Vancouver and have gotten worse each series.
As for the coaches. I don’t understand how a coaching staff that has made all the right adjustments all season long would fail to identify the issues in this series. I think it’s more a confidence thing from the players. Mackinnion did a number on them and spooked them. In Top Gun terms, the whole team “Cougared”. The defenseman will be having nightmares of Mackinnion coming down on them for the whole Summer.