Quote:
Originally Posted by Burning Beard
It's crazy what a season with .894 save percentage has done to everyone. Every little thing is being analyzed to death.
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I can take a 91 point season as one to grown on. We have certainly had worse seasons.
However, I don't think it's the end result that has people the most down, but the constant number of things that have gone wrong and concerns about what happens next.
- Gaudreau leaving as a free agent.
- Tkachuk forcing a trade.
- Markstrom's catastrophic performance over the season.
- Huberdeau's historic decline, combined with Tkachuk's rise.
- A high percentage of the team cap space tied up in disappointing players long term. Combined with a cap that is not going up by a lot and the resistance (or impossibility) to rebuild.
- Arena negotiation problems.
- The GM quitting.
- Lindholm and Backlund seeming non-committed to the future in Calgary. It took almost a whole season for this team to start building chemistry after losing JG and MT, and it is starting to look like we get to go through that again next season.
- Talks of owner interference.
- Rumours of infighting between Sutter and the players.
- Getting almost the worst possible draft pick for teams missing the playoffs is a little salt in the wound as well.
And most of these things have been rubbed in our faces by the media and are getting league-wide attention. It just makes it hard to be a happy fan when the club attracts this kind of attention constantly. This fanbase desperately needs something positive to happen. I honestly can't think of any teams that have had so much negativity around them over the course of a calendar year. There was a little reprieve after the Huberdeau acquisition, but that obviously didn't last. Even with the Coyotes, it tends to just be on the business side of things, but this year with the Flames, it is everything.
Before anyone puts their head in the oven after reading all that, I will say that the emergence of Duehr was a very nice surprise, and Coronato, Pelletier, and Wolf give us some hope. I like Zary's potential as well.