Quote:
Originally Posted by edslunch
The Flames got rope-a-doped by that first game. After dominating the Stars apart from Ottinger they completely owned the Oilers in game one and started playing river hockey. They got sloppy and Markstrom forgot where his glove was but they won handily anyway.
Any lessons they supposedly learned went out the window when they raced out to another multi-goal lead in game two. The Oilers adapted and the Flames, particularly Markstrom, were off their game for the rest of the series. Honestly, if the Oilers had played a solid game 1 the series would still be going.
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I think the lesson they learned from the first round is that they can press and just continue to put pressure on, and if the opponent comes out of their zone then Markstrom will clean it up.
But in this series, Markstrom lets in a softie. So the next shift, you don't press as hard to keep a puck in along the boards, you end up being tentative, you back off... pretty much the story of the series.
I honestly don't think the Oilers adapted to anything. They Flames accommodated them.