No. Those two teams are two of the three exceptions. And lets not forget that the Flames were dominated by both those teams and lost 5-3 and 6-2 respectively. If the Flames make it into the playoffs they have to be much more competitive against those teams and the like and only scoring 1 to 3 regulation non empty net goals isn't going to cut it most games... which is my point in a nutshell. The Flames have an offense problem, no matter it seams, who the opponent is.
It seems like some of you have
forgotten how impotent the Flames offense was against Colorado last playoffs. The Flames O was completely exposed.
Here's a little refresher...
View attachment 265233
Forgotten? No, not forgotten. But certainly managed to put it into perspective, yes. Gotten carried away assuming that a playoff round is more predictive than long-term results? Definitely not.
Out of curiosity, what's your projection for how Tampa will do this season?
My main point pointing towards your stats was that if you are going to take those numbers and ignore a portion of them, what's the point in appealing to the stats at all? You might as well be entirely subjective if you're going to be subjective about when to be objective.
Realistically, out of our 7 games so far this season, we've played 2 convincingly good teams in Vegas and Colorado. While we didn't start the game on time against Colorado, in the second period we were arguably the superior team, and we were flat out dominant in the third. Against Vegas, we played a very tight game and were extremely far from dominated, with a massive disparity in goaltending performance leading to an unflattering finish. Saying we were "dominated by both of those teams" belies that you either didn't watch the games, or are just being disingenuous.
The other five games were against unconvincing or middling teams. We didn't show up to the LA game until half way through, but were dominant after we did, we battled the Stars hard and came out on top, we shut down the Canucks without bringing our A game, and controlled the game against the Flyers until their push in the latter half of the third. Against the Sharks, by all accounts we were the better team while being tired.
Taking the results and over-simplifying them, we could panic and think this team doesn't have the ability to win hockey games. But if you actually delve into what went on in these games, it tells the story of a team that can play at a high level, but hasn't found consistency yet. There really is no need to be so hysterical. There have been encouraging signs in almost every game we played this season. It's early season, and the results from the first 10 games aren't usually predictive (remember Montreal's 10-0 start that one year? Remember.... us, the Flames, last year?).