[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Royle9

reposting from other thread.

TLDR for me on Flames.

1. No superstar - This team went downhill when we lost Johnny and Matthew in the same season. This team needs something, someone who can carry this team on their back on those nights where its just not clicking. All the good teams have this, and yes most of these teams drafted these types of players which means most of them bottomed out/got lucky at some point.
   
2. The wrong system - I'm not a Huska hater by any means, but this system just doesn't work for this team. We have a number of skilled east/west players that are great with possession and we do not use their skillset to our advantage. Huska insists on a hardnosed dump to the corner style of forecheck and we don't have the speed or size to get there.
   
3. On the topic of Huska, our offensive numbers are down significantly this year and guys appear (to me at least) to be playing outside of their strengths. I don't mind being defensively minded, but you need to let your best players do what they do with the puck in the o-zone. Frost and Huberdeau have extremely strong east/west play making abilities, lets use that to our strength and that starts with MORE SKATING and people trying to get open. You watch the Flames in the o-zone and they just continue that cycle around the perimeter with a weak shot from the point and nobody around for the rebound. I cant for the life of me understand what we're trying to accomplish.
   
4. We have the best rookie goalie in decades in the NHL and he's single handedly carried this team to a playoff spot alone. Without Wolf we're not even in the realm of losing our 1st pick this year and likely where we were slated at the beginning of the season which is bottom 10.
   
5. Special teams continues to be an absolute nightmare. Our PK has flashes of being quite good, but our PP remains embarrassingly terrible. Why on earth is this a repetitive problem? It looks terrible, players dont move nearly enough and we don't put players in the right spots to maximize their strengths. For how much they supposedly practice it, I remain absolutely stunned how bad it is.

Losing 8 of your last 10 in a stretch where your fighting for your playoff livelihood shows you just how poorly this team is constructed. The game against Vancouver sealed it for me, if they couldn't get hyped up for that game and couldn't compete in that scenario they really aren't going anywhere.

I do wonder if guys will have a change of heart after this collapse to end the season, I can't see how the 3-4 guys who bring it most nights would want to come back to a team who has no direction, no desire and no compete.

This team is the same team we've rotated through for the last decade plus. Just a mediocre hockey team, not bad enough to pick well and not good enough to compete. That mediocre middling, flash of skill but ultimately not strong enough against the good teams.

Lets not waste our years of Wolf, we're clearly not going full re-build so lets build around him and a few of your younger guys and bring in a system and playstyle that works to our strengths. If you want that to be the hard nosed dump style then we better get bigger and faster. Or let our guys play east/west transition style and play the possession game, you simply cant play the speed/size game with the roster we have constructed today.

/end rant sorry.

Yes, the team isn't very good. We all agree with that.