Well hopefully without sounding like a huge downer or just an idiot, how about the opinion that the Flames are deep, but at a sort of mediocre level - like think about our center depth - Monahan, Backlund, Ryan, Jankowski, Dube, possibly Bennett. Pretty great. But think about dropping in Kadri as a #2 and wow, the team looks a LOT stronger suddenly, because Backs is a strong 3rd line center. And Janko's replaceable, that's just... a fact, no?
Right wing is thin and Frolik's showing the other night was enough to have people calling for his demotion to the AHL. So that ain't great.
So... our depth isn't so good. And where teams like, say, the Avs we used to say didn't have much depth, having only really one dangerous line, suddenly they look a little (or a lot in some cases) deeper this year, like the kids are growing up.
In summary, I guess my "unpopular opinion" is that the Flames are a good team, but they aren't genuinely deep up front (defense I think is better, and Hanifin might be showing some offense that he didn't last year, woot), and that our depth is moot against teams with crazy talent. (This was brought up on Steinberg's show today I believe, and I've been thinking about it since.)
Here's another unpopular opinion: Peters didn't do anything in the playoffs, and he didn't have an effective game plan for the game the other night. So maybe he doesn't have another "gear" as a coach? I dunno, coaching's REALLY hard to judge for me.
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