Quote:
Originally Posted by ricardodw
It is very hard to rate the Flames playoff performance.
The Jets were missing 2 of their top 4 players.
The Flames played 4 close games with Dallas winning one before they ran out of gas.
Against Dallas the Flames lost their best player.
Dallas turned out to be a better team than advertised and with 20-20 hindsight were built more for the playoffs with 90% of their skaters able to play efficiently in the heavier playoff game.
Their softest d-man (and player) was Heskanien with only 4.27 hits / 60 minutes. There was only Hanifin on the Flames with 6.05 hits / 60 minutes that was above Heskanien. Gio had 2.46 hits/ 60 minutes. and for comparison Olesiak had 12.01 hits/ 60 minutes leading the Stars defense.
Gio had a bad playoffs but had he been on Dallas's defense (maybe as #4) he would have been a lot more physical as part of the gang.
If you are thinking that Gio let the Flames defense down then the same goes for the rest of the guys that did not pick up their physical game to the playoff level.
The Flames missed Hamonic.
Fobort 3.77 hits/60 was #96 out of 144 in defensemen with 4 or more playoff games and Andersson 3.63 hits /60 was #101. These were the biggest d-man hitters after Hanifin.
Gio should not be expected to carry the physical load for the Flames.
They need some more crashers rather than dashers if they expect Gio to play in their top-4 for the next 2 seasons. He is not getting the space he needs to be great like he did when he could play with a physical edge and defend his own space. He has had a lot of injuries in his career and they are taking longer to come back from
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Did this actually make sense to everyone else or have i gone mad?