Quote:
Originally Posted by dino7c
The debate was about next season...it was suggested the Sharks improving somehow makes it easier for a Flames tank. The Sharks are irrelevant to the Flames next season.
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False. The performance of other teams absolutely can impact our position on the standings.
This season, 4 of the bottom 5 teams in the league are all in the west. We play 4 games against division rivals and 3 games against conference rival and only 2 games against team in the East.
Eyeballing the games against the current bottom 10:
Sharks = W, W, ?, ?
Ducks = W, W, W, ?
Kraken = OTL, W, OTL, W
Blackhawks = W, W, W
Preds = W, W, L
Flyers = W, W
Sabres = OTL, W
Penguins = W, L
NYI = W, W
Bruins = OTL, OTL
37 of the Flames 84 points on the season come from the bottom feeder teams (with 3 games still outstanding). Most of those points came from the bad teams in the West. (Honourable mention that we also farmed 4 points out of our 2 games against NYR before they started rising back into the playoff race, which basically means half of our points came from bottom 10 teams)
If any of those teams in the West take a significant step toward improvement and stop being the easy wins they are today then I think the Flames are highly likely to become the team that drops down and replaces them at the bottom.
Also, unless the Flames can find some more scoring within their roster, they are going to continue to rely heavily on their team defense and their goaltending. Thus, if Andersson is traded then that defense will take a hit and we probably start seeing a bunch of 5-3 losses instead of 3-2 wins.