Quote:
Originally Posted by nik-
Some people are going to cling to that 2nd place finish until it's something like "Just three seasons ago we finished second in the league!"
It didn't matter. The Flames got exposed. For the last quarter of the season last year they were an average team and they got embarrassed in the playoffs. The second place regular season finish is a mirage and now we're just continuing on the trajectory that started post ASG last season.
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100% fair assessment
Quote:
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This is not a team that can win it all. It needs changes, but it's the Flames, so they'll tinker around the edges
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100% overreaction
The hockey playoffs are incredibly random and all it takes is a hot two month stretch from a talented team to win it all. In the last decade you can look at the stories of the 2011 Bruins, 2012 Kings, 2013 Blackhawks, 2014 Kings, 2015 Blackhawks, 2016 Penguins, 2017 Penguins, 2018 Capitals, and 2019 Blues to realize a few things:
- Some of those teams had elite scoring wingers (Patrick Kane or Alex Ovechkin) but none of them were without their flaws or past failings (the Capitals took over a decade to get past round 2, Patrick Kane is hardly a two-way player)
- Many of these teams weren't even particularily high-scoring in the regular season. Some of them didn't even post strong regular season records
- many of these teams were only a season or less away from massive failures of their own (2016 Blackhawks got swept in round 1, 2015 Kings got eliminated from the playoffs by a team rolling Josh Jooris in its top six for much of the year, 2018-19 Blues were something like dead last in the league as late as December, 2010 Bruins choked a 3-0 series lead, 2012 Kings barely scraped into the playoffs after a coaching change saved their season, 2016 Penguins were out of a playoff spot in December and needed AHL callups and midseason panic moves to suddenly start playing like one of the best teams ever, 2017 Penguins were without their #1 Defenseman and got
outplayed in almost every game in their entire run outside of the cup-clincher, saved only by their "1B" goalie being absolutely on fire and stealing multiple series.
- talent-wise, the gap isn't clear either, outside of the Penguins teams. Most of those teams on paper were better down the middle but even then guys like Bergeron and Kopitar and ROR were not considered what they are until after they won it all.