Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
16-26-7 vs 24-16-9, and then 19-14-0 vs 11-19-2.
What are these records? It was the 2013-14 season, and it was Calgary's start vs Vancouver's start, and then the "Brawl game", and then Calgary's finish vs Vancouver's finish.
I also think back to some other times that this kind of stuff made a difference. IMO, I think Lucic really demolished Buffalo that year he ran Miller. I mean, I thought it was ugly and I hated him for doing it, but what happened after that game? Buffalo basically started to implode, and they have been rebuilding ever since.
Last year we saw Wilson get into the NYR's heads, and they acquired one of the toughest guys in the NHL to ensure that doesn't happen again.
IMO, that 2013-14 Flames team were the toughest top to bottom that I remember for a while, and that incident I think galvanized that squad and propelled them into a solid subsequent season that saw them go all the way to the 2nd round of the playoffs. It wasn't such miracle season, regardless of what the advanced stats say - that team started to play with swagger and they played for one another, and it didn't go unnoticed. Aaron Ward spoke about how they were playing as a team and for each other, and picked them to make the playoffs in the 2014-15 season (the only pundit to do so), and he was proven right. People forget that the season didn't have a lot go wrong as well - tonnes of injuries to important players, but they managed to battle through them.
I also remember that Treliving has always wanted size. Perhaps it was just lip service, but he always said that the Flames need to get bigger, but that size has to come with skating ability and skill. Flames have tried drafting players with size and skill, but the really good ones are picked high in the draft for the most part. Still, when you end up drafting a Micheal Ferland, it is absolutely can be a game changer, as we all saw in the 2014-15 playoffs. Flames have continually been trying to draft that size and skill, but then comes the off-season and the Flames just seem to target a random collection of players simply to fill holes - and that's fine in some cases when you already have an identity, but after the 2014-15 season the Flames lost their identity and haven't had one until now.
I think this team is going to start having that 'swagger' again. I don't think that any team in the league can really match up with the Flames. Washington has a lot of size, particularly in their top 6, but Calgary won't be backing down from any team physically this year since around 2014-15. Those 2 seasons had this team as a really tough and physical team, with a bunch of rookies leading the charge offensively for the most part.
Those UFAs that we signed are all (well, mostly) skilled in some ways. Lewis, Richardson and Pitlick are going to be incredibly annoying to play against physically and defensively, and they are going to compliment Backlund and Lucic well (Lucic is so underrated defensively).
We all were getting tired of Ritchie next to Gaudreau and Monahan, but EXCELS on the forecheck IMO, and makes this team so much more difficult to play against. Use him correctly in the lineup, and he is a very good piece to have IMO (keep him on the 4th line).
Zadorov and Gudbranson will provide a lot more of the physicality too, and I bet they end up being fairly solid defensively (hello Darryl Sutter).
I am really excited to see this team play. Once again, I completely disagree that this team hasn't made some big changes - they completely changed their style of play and their identity in one off-season. That's huge. Adding Eichel and keeping everything the same - including the style of play as last season - wouldn't have sent this team in a new direction. They would have been better, and on paper they might have been considered a really good team, but I am tired of the 'on paper' stuff that doesn't pan out. This team on paper used to have the best defence in the NHL in 2010 - and that team sucked. Then you had Giordano - Brodie - Hamilton - Hamonic - and that team wasn't very good either.
Those teams had a few things in common - they played slow, and they were poorly coached, and I would say they had no identity or swagger at all.
I am excited about this team this year. I mean, I still hope that Eichel somehow gets acquired as well, but to say that this team is not going to look drastically different this upcoming season is (IMO) not giving enough attention to the team as a whole now. It is going to be a team with a lot of swagger, a lot of moxie, and a team that just might be the most hated to play against in the NHL this season.
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