Everyone relax. This isn't over YET. The Flames don't look good, but they could turn it around and finish the Stars off. They have to get back to playing with the same swagger they had during the regular season. The problems I see from the Flames are pretty straight forward.
* Sutter set them on this course with his mindnumbingly stupid mumble-jumbo about them being the underdogs in this series. Professional athletes need to believe in themselves to be successful. This world-against-us mentality is pretty much crap after you do what the Flames did during the regular season. The idea they being preached that they are the underdogs let's seeds of uncertainty be planted and a little adversity cause the belief they really aren't good enough to take root. The Flames have lost their swagger because they don't believe they should be winning these games. It has become a self-fulfilling prophesy even though they are the much better team.
* The Flames have reverted to their old ways. This was predictable as soon as the underdog #### started. The Flames are no longer playing with confidence and have gone back to playing around the perimeter. They are playing scared and it shows in the shots they are generating. These guys are afraid to go to the dangerous spots on the ice and try to make something happen, so they play around the perimeter and generate a tone of long range low percentage shots.
* Gaudreau has reverted to coming across the blueline and blowing snow, eliminating a lot of the open ice Gaudreau has been so good at creating all season long. He has to carry the puck in deeper and create more open ice where the puck turnovers don't result in such quick transitions or easy dump outs.
* Tkachuk continues to be a no-mind idiot, unfocused and incapable of being a winner when it matters. You don't settle scores in the playoffs. You save that crap for next season. You want payback in the post season you do it by taking away the other guy's hopes of a ring by eliminating them from the playoffs. He's still mentally weak and easily distracted. Until this changes he'll never be a significant playoff performer on a winner. He needs to play some hockey, score some goals, and contribute to wins, not trying to settle imaginary scores.
* The second and third lines need to step the hell up and provide something - ANYTHING - of value at this point. Do SOMETHING positive. Score a goal. Make a big hit. Win some puck battles. Do something that can change a game in the Flames direction.
The Flames need to find their swagger, and ####ing fast or this series is over. If they continue to allow the Stars to dictate the ebb and flow of this series it is over. But this team proved during the regular season they can be the one to dominate all over the ice, they are the ones who establish the pace, and they are ones who control the ebb and flow of the game. They need to start believing in that and start playing like that. It ain't over, but they need to believe in themselves and this whole underdog horse#### that Sutter has been spinning from day one is not helping.
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