I have said it before and I will say it again. That 2015 Flames run reminds me so much of the Sven Baertschi emergency call up.
Flames were supposed to be in the mix to get McDavid but the team overachieved thanks in part to huge seasons from rookie Johnny Gaudreau and sophomore Sean Monahan as well as career years from Hudler, Wideman and until he went down Gio.
That team was horrible analytically and had a PDO that showed they were getting a lot of luck. I think once they beat the Canucks it cemented to ownership that this team is ready to compete.
Sven was having an epic draft+1 season averaging 2ppg. He gets the rare emergency call up from junior and scored 3 games in a row and has Flames fans anointing him the next one. I think Sven thought it would all come easy and he was not prepared for the bumpy road ahead.
Had those little runs not occurred a more natural slow path to building a winning team/top player could of happened.
|