Quote:
Originally Posted by 2macinnis2
No offense but I think that is a brutal oversimplification. The reason the Flames were the heavy favorite was not because our first line was expected to outperform, or I’d argue even keep up with the Avs first line. The advantage the Flames have is a much deeper lineup with a significantly better back end. There’s really no aspect to any of these matchups the Flames won. The Avs D was better than the Flames. Guys like Ian Cole and Zadorov looked like Stalwarts. Barrie was error proof it seemed. Depth? Guys like friggin JT Compher, Nieto, Wilson, even Soderberg ... honestly totally average players on any planet, were somehow unstoppable and getting chances all over the place. They were all basically on fire NBA Jam style.
The Avs first line probably was good enough to win this series by themselves, but not this convincingly and not this fast. That’s a close 6-7 game series. When you’re dominated and out in 5, it’s way way more than 3 players on their team and 3 on ours.
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Or is it possible the Av's depth is better than they were given credit for? They certainly gave the second best regular season team in the league more than they could handle. Are Frolik, Neal, Jankowski, Ryan, Bennett, Hathaway better than Compher, Soderberg,Wilson, Neito? Evidently not.
As for the D, TJ Brodie, in my mind, was hands down the poorest performer of any top 4 on either team.
The playoffs are a different game. No one should be getting too hung up on regular season records. The Av's won because they were the better team, both on and off the ice. That said, of all the guys who should shoulder blame Peters is fairly far down the list. I'm not sure if there was any player who distinguished themselves as some who commanded special attention from the Av's.
Monahan ,Gaudreau, Brodie all fell well short of where they should have been. Backlund & Gio were also disappointing. If you're getting that level of performance from that many of your core, you're not going to win. Period.
My hope is the Flames build from this. I think they will, but it's also clear they need to make some adjustments to the roster.
We have a good coach with a good staff who guided the team to their second best regular season ever. No point in getting on them now.