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Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina
It's not just about scoring - but I get your point.
But I would counter that if your top line player are getting outplayed more often than not - then you are already behind.
If anything the Oilers are proof of this. They can win games by having the two best players on the ice most nights. Can they win a championship? Remains to be seen. But they enjoy that advantage every night.
Calgary is at a disadvantage most nights because their top players are inferior.
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For the Flames specifically, I think scoring has probably been the biggest bugaboo in the Treliving era. Looking at the team’s rankings in goals ever since he hired Gulutzan is pretty damning. The primary objective in the NHL is to outscore your opponent and generally speaking, when you’re middle of the pack or in the 20’s a lot of years, you’re probably at best a bubble playoff team which is exactly what the Flames are minus 18-19 when they caught lightning in a bottle.
The Oilers are proof that you can’t be a 2 player team. If this is a 3-2 league, then McDavid and Draisaitl would have to consistently produce 2 to 3 goals every night in order for the Oilers to win. That’s not going to happen as I pointed out, stars get shutdown from time to time and that’s when you hope the other guys can pick up the slack.
The Flames are probably middle of the pack when it comes to star player production; but ever since their dynamic duo was figured out, this team has struggled to win because they’ve anticipated a certain number of goals from that duo every season and they haven’t delivered up to the expected standard. Who’s at fault is certainly debatable, but I still think it ultimately comes down to Treliving either picking the wrong guys to move forward, not building the requisite depth this team needed or building the wrong type of team that can succeed in today’s game.
Every year this team gets trounced in the same way whether it be in the playoffs or in the regular season, so to me, that’s not learning from past mistakes. It’s actually very reminiscent when Darryl’s team would be fail in the first round or fail to make the playoffs, you have to know when and how to pivot quickly otherwise you end up like the Flames, several failed rebuilds spanning 3 decades now.
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