Quote:
Originally Posted by ComixZone
Top players continue to be bad during 5v5 play.
Seriously dismayed by this teams inability to play effective 5v5 hockey. The only line delivering is yet again Lucic-Bennett-Dube. This team just kills me.
Where would this team be with Lucic-Bennett-Dube? My goodness.
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We saw where this team would be without Lucic-Bennett-Dube against Colorado last year.
Defense was horrific outside of Brodie. Even the broadcast crew mentioned how they couldn't hold the line. Forbort was just a disaster, Hanifin meh but will seemingly never generate anything positive on his own. Gustafsson was ok. I'm wondering where the Andersson from last playoffs went.
Overall, Flames have an enormous problem with hockey fundamentals: recovering the puck, controlling it, and exiting the zone together. It's like they don't know whether to skate it out or pass it out, and when they try to skate they skate right into a Dallas player and when they try to pass the most they accomplish is squeezing the puck into the neutral zone, where Dallas dumps it back in again. Occasionally the Bennett line and the Backlund line manage to establish some zone time, but the vast majority of the time the Flames are chasing the puck around their own zone, as the 100+ shot attempts from Dallas show.
Strong individual performances from Talbot, Rieder, Bennett, and Brodie. Gaudreau had his best game of the playoffs by far. Quine and Dube good too.