Quote:
Originally Posted by Sidney Crosby's Hat
For Bure, it depends on the progression of his back/hip injuries and if that would have happened if he was in Calgary. 03-04 was the last season of his career due to the injuries.
I always wondered what if Steve Reinprecht was healthy and more the 20-goal scorer that he had shown the season before in Colorado (In the Avs' 01-02 run, he had 12 points in 21 games).
But at the end of the day, what made that team special was the mix that it had. Not sure anything added or subtracted from it gets the result we all hoped for.
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Certainly some of the players that were injured in 04 may have been enough to push us over the top. I mean, it was in, so we were about as close as could be anyways.
-Steve Reinprecht was on pace for 55 points that year had he not been injured, he didn't play a single game in the playoffs.
-Dean McAmmond had 17 goals and was on pace for 22. He didn't play a single game in the playoffs.
-Matt Lombardi was a 16 goal man that year and didn't play at all in the 3rd round or final.
-Toni Lydman was a strong (and underrated IMO) two way top 4 defensemen who played the first 3 games of the 1st round, and only the last 3 games of the final.
Those are all pretty big parts of the team that the Flames were without the services of. Even the loss of Gauthier in the 1st round was a hit to the team. It's almost legendary that the team made it as far as they did with guys like Montador and Commodore playing significant minutes. And had Sutter not made the trades for Simon, Nilson, and Niemenen, we were for sure first round fodder.