I've got a bit of a theory bleeding back to last year:
The Flames are at their worst when they carry most of the play. They're not a cycle team. Of course you can't win being a counterattack team either, so they have to suck it up and dominate bad teams and make it easy for the Markstroms of the world to pad their numbers. But the payoff, and this goes back to last year when we beat some pretty elite teams decisively, comes against other top teams like Tampa, because now we can simultaneously carry enough of the play against them to not let them dictate the game, but we will still score some rush goals which is how the Flames (and the 3M line especially) thrive.