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Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus
You're definitely leaning hard here, but I find it harder and harder to argue against with Monahan. Why do we as fans expect players like Johnny (turnovers) and Bennett (stone hands) to improve aspects of their game but for some reason think it's fine for Monahan to just be what he is?...
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You are taking about different things—I, for one, don't accept that Monahan is fine playing the way he has; I merely believe that he will be a lot better more consistently in the future, because he has shown so many flashes of this for long stretches throughout his career.
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Monahan has been abysmal in the playoffs for too long. Yes he scored 4 goals against Anaheim 2 years ago, but it was the same terrible, uninspired play that we saw this year for the most part. I would rather he gets 0 points if he actually plays hard at both ends and shows a will to win. Without a clear change in approach, it will just be more of the same cream puff hockey from him the next time around, most likely with a similar result.
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This is a revisionist view of things. Monahan had a very poor showing in the playoffs THIS YEAR, and I believe that has unfairly coloured peoples' memories about him from the past few years. I rather recall that in 2017 the team was competitive in all three of their first games against Anaheim, could easily have one any one of them, and were let down by exceptionally poor goaltending. Monahan and Sam Bennett were the best Flames forwards in that series. Period. They probably would have looked even better or achieved better results if any one else of the forward group had bothered to show up in those games.