Quote:
Originally Posted by nik-
That 50 win team had career highs from multiple players and got their show run in the first round and never looked anything like that regular season again. This is not a competitive team.
We shouldn't cling to that like we clung to 04, it was an aberration.
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The Lightning also "got their show run" that year in the playoffs. The thing is, they didn't change the way they played completely, they just added a physical element to their team.
Peters over-reacted going from the up tempo game to a defense oriented system, then when Ward took over, he took it even further and really got lucky from the new coach bump and a flukey playoff series win. Think about the series win against Winnipeg, the Jets lost their two best players and the Flames were led by Bennett-Lucic-Dube, a third line, and barely got any production from the top two lines.
I remember back to the 2018 season when the Flames and Lightning met in the regular season at the Dome. That was some amazing hockey and both coaches acknowledged it too. Cooper had a ton of great things to say about Peters and the Flames at that time. This team/core was at its peak potential at that time. It was Peters job to get them back there, he couldn't, but it doesn't mean that this team/core doesn't have it in them.