Well I'll come out and say it: This is it, Flames win it all.
It's early days to be sure, but this is looking like a monster off-season for Treliving. Suddenly the defense is sound up top and promising at the bottom, goaltending is like old days... Kipper how we miss ya! But just having a save instead of a "whoopsie" here and there.... makes all the difference. Markstrom makes this team far more dangerous.
If Gaudreau and Monahan, together or separately can get their games rolling again... watch out. And the reason this looks likely is that the slotting is suddenly fantastic, with Lindholm at 1C. Is Lindy a 1C? I don't know. But if he is, if this can work, and suddenly Monahan is 2C and Backlund 3C, this team is tremendous down the middle. That's ideal stuff. Maybe the depth isn't so mediocre.
Speaking of non-mediocre depth, "suddenly" Dube and Mangiapane are legit, and Leivo and Simon don't look out of place to me (Simon in front of the net causing trouble and battling is why Gaudreau scores that goal).
So I'm suddenly a ton happier with the team's build, this looks totally different than last year. If the "what do we do with these guys" are Ryan, Bennett, and Lucic, man that's a nice problem to have.
New and Improved Flames
