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Originally Posted by Enoch Root
...Obviously, getting more talent is always welcome. But there is a thing called the cap. And to me, these numbers say that top 6 talent isn’t the Flames’ problem.
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Thanks, Enoch! These echo my precise sentiments that I have held for a long time. I think all fans get deluded into thinking that their favourite teams's top-six forwards have holes because of how utterly impossible it is in a cap world to construct a truly elite top-six. (Every team's fans, that is, except the Oilers; Oilers fans are most often convinced that their scoring forwards are among the best in the League.) Every team will make sacrifices and attempt to compensate, and it looks from this that the Flames have done an excellent job of that.
I am curious about the rankings of some teams often regarded as possessing elite-level depth that did not arrive in the Conference finals? Most specifically, what of VGK, TO, and Colorado?
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IMO, their two biggest problems last year were:
#1: goaltending (below average)
#2: toughness / grit, whatever you want to call it (almost non-existent)
Thoughts?
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I tend to agree more-or-less, but I wonder if "toughness/grit" is the right descriptor. I maintain that the Flames's biggest issues down the stretch and into the playoffs was that they too quickly abandoned their own game when other teams made things difficult. Perhaps that is "toughness," but to my mind it is predominantly psychological: the Flames best players got into their own heads too easily and too often. They made mistakes and struggled to overcome them.