I would change "Dube emerging" to "new core emerging" and to follow up ricardo's idea that the core has changed without changing personnel, I guess that's the same thing maybe - but they are changing.
I think we've seen Giordano look far less dominating this year, both physically and mentally - his game isn't as sharp as it has been. More positional penalties and more mental mistakes (last night's puck-over-glass just one example). If the "core" is Giordano/Brodie, and Gaudreau/Monahan (Backlund?) at it's most basic cut, then the "new core" is Dube, Mangiapane, Tkachuk, Ras, hopefully valimaki, hopefully Bennett...
So that's pretty nice. Gustaffson's a nice interim fit in the defense (he's shown what a shooter does for the powerplay for example). Lucic filling his role and then some suddenly.
I thought Lindholm brought a lot of energy and physicality combined with responsible play in the first series. And I thought Monahan upped his 2 way effort - as has been mentioned, if he and Gaudreau aren't a defensive liability, that's a win in itself. Would I like to see that top line get some goals and look dangerous? Hell yes. But if what they are doing is tying up other teams' best defenders (or controlling their scorers) then the other lines on the Flames can do the other work, and that's what we are starting to see here. Matchups become very hard for the other team.
So I'm feeling pretty happy about where the team is at. I think they're a step behind the obvious cup contenders (Carolina, Vegas etc), but things are coming together.
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