[getbak]

I think one of the biggest problems is that people remember all the years where the Flames finished in the so-called "mushy middle", either making the playoffs as a low seed or just missing the playoffs (often finishing with more points than a team that made the playoffs in the East). Remembering those years, people look at last season and see it as more of the same.

The difference is that those teams were built with the intention of being contenders and they underachieved (or in 2009's case, they were hit by late injuries and couldn't recover come playoff time).

Last year's team was more like the 2014-15 team, built to finish near the bottom of the league and hopefully do well in the lottery, but a US-born rookie had other plans and pushed them further than expected.

I think there's a good chance this year has a similar result to the one that followed 2015.


In the summer of 2015, Treliving traded for Hamilton and they thought they were closer than they were. In the summer of 2025, Conroy did not make any similar types of moves.


I don't think there was any point last season where the Flames' payroll wasn't bottom-3 overall in the league, and was often at the very bottom. I expect them to be bottom-5 most of this season (Puckpedia has them 6th-lowest right now, but in a virtual tie with Pittsburgh and Detroit). You don't have that much cap space if you're really trying to be a contender.

They have a tough start to the season, with 12 games in October: 7 on the road and 5 at home. 2 back-to-backs. 2 games against Vegas, 2 against Winnipeg. I think if they have something like a 4-8 record at the end of the month, it can start to snowball and they could be near the bottom of the league by US Thanksgiving. They also have a lot of road games in November, and three more back-to-backs.