Question:
If the Flames play the Wild in the conference finals who gets home ice? The team with more points or the division winner? If it is the Wild I am not sure why the flames wouldn’t have pushed harder to win one of those 2 final games.
On the underdog mentality. You look at Sutter’s teams that went on long runs. In 2004 the Flames faced 4 division winners and were the underdog in each series and it proved to help fuel the team (the autograph story against the Wings has been told a few times recently). In 2012 they were the 8 seed and even though the way they steamrolled teams made them the favorite by the later rounds they never abandoned the mentality they were underdogs. In 2014 they were down 3-0 and certainly were the underdogs going long in each series until the cup final.
I think because the Flames recently played and lost to Dallas who was a cup finalist 2 years ago helps make this narrative a little more believable despite the fact that outside almost everyone is calling for a Flames win in likely a short series.
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