Quote:
Originally Posted by TOfan
They weren’t contenders? To be clear if we dug up articles from 21/22 headed into the playoffs you wouldn’t find several reporters/analysts stating the Flames were not contenders? I don’t think so. They were widely considered contenders is what I think you would find.
Also, several, ie most, contenders lose in the playoffs.
Nor am I suggesting that just because the Flames have Hanifin and Anderson does that preclude them from acquiring a better D-man.
Some of you guys are pretty eager to leap to pretty flimsy conclusions.
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No they weren't, look at the results on the ice not articles by hack journalists.
And the team didn't just lose in the play-offs, they lost fairly early, in a short series to a pretty mediocre team. They followed it up by missing the play-offs the following two years.
Noah Hanifin and Rasmus Andersson have been on the Flames together for 5 years, plus this one. In that time we have won 1 play-off series and missed the play-offs 3 times, likely 4 by the end of this year.
If you look at that and say that you have confidence that a team with those two as the top defensemen are likely to be a contender you are putting a lot of faith in the players around them.
There is nothing flimsy about looking at the teams that have won the Cup and the level of player they have and see that Hanifin and Andersson are not it, it is not flimsy to look at the results when those two have been on the team and see that hasn't been good enough and it isn't flimsy to look at the Flames situation in terms of current talent, prospects and ability to add players going forward and see that they will need a ton of luck (which is a terrible way to build a team) to build a team around them that can compete for the Cup.