Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric Vail
I think the Flames problem is they played their best hockey in mid-season and then their top line fell off their game and never found it again. The playoffs came, and the first line was ineffective, like the previous 20 games, and they lost. They stole regular season wins due to a fourth line and others stepping up, but that wasn't going to cut it in the playoffs.
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Agree - it comes down to the fact that, for reasons that are not obvious, 3 of the players that were key to the Flames' dominance earlier in the season (Monahan, Lindholm and Tkachuk), had their offensive performance fall off dramatically in the last quarter of the season, and this carried over to the playoffs. All three are young players who, barring injury, would normally be expected to get even better as the season wears on, and they didn't.