Pacific Review: Which Flames team will show up this season?

It’s kind of difficult to tie together what happened with the Calgary Flames last season.

On one hand, they had an amazing, unexpected run, scoring the second-most goals in the league and finishing at the top of the Western Conference. On the other, they fell flat in the playoffs and got embarrassed by the eight-seeded Colorado Avalanche in five games. So they were a positive surprise but also a disappointing letdown.

Are the Flames the dynamic team that bombed their way through an incredible regular season? Or are they the team that disappeared in a tight-checking playoff series? Part of what makes this so difficult to pin-point is how all over the grid the Flames have been in the past few years.

In 2014-15, they massively overachieved all the way to a 97-point season that relied heavily on a high shooting percentage. In 2015-16, they fell back down to earth, putting up 77 points. In 2016-17, under new head coach Glen Gulutzan, the Flames got themselves back into the playoffs with a 94-point season. In 2017-18, they fell back again, missing the playoffs with 84 points. Gulutzan got the sack and the Flames put up their 107-point season under Bill Peters.

Was the 2018-19 team that dominated the West really that different from the 2017-18 team that disappointed the previous year?

The off-season trade of Dougie Hamilton and Michael Ferland for Noah Hanifin and Elias Lindholm worked out nicely. Big-ticket free-agent signing James Neal didn’t work out at all. New head coach Bill Peters seemed to be a better fit for the team. But, overall, a lot of Calgary’s improvements from their disappointing season to their breakout season were internal. Captain Mark Giordano put up a Norris Trophy campaign, Matthew Tkachuk grew into a star, they had wave after wave of scoring depth, and David Rittich put up a very solid season.

Will all of that work out again or will the pattern of letting down continue for the Flames in 2019-20?

I really, really don’t think we’ll see the Flames drop out of the playoffs as we did in 2016 and 2018. This group is better than the 2015 and 2017 teams that made the playoffs. But the Flames repeating their 107-point season is a big ask.

Calgary didn’t do much this off-season other than some housekeeping work and making some swaps with their rivals up the QEII.

The Flames got Matthew Tkachuk signed to a three-year bridge deal worth $7.5 million annually. It’s a massive price to pay for exclusively restricted free agent years, but the Flames needed to get Tkachuk signed and playing in order to capitalize on a legitimate contention window. They also got Sam Bennett signed to a two-year bridge deal that could be a bargain for a couple of years if the former fourth-overall pick finally breaks out.

They let Mike Smith walk in free agency and he would end up signing with the Oilers. They decided to replace him with former Oilers goalie Cam Talbot. The Oilers and Flames also linked up for a wild mid-summer trade, as bad contracts Milan Lucic and James Neal were swapped in a change-of-scenery deal.

So, save for swapping backup goalies and albatross contracts with the Oilers, it’ll be pretty much the same group playing for the Flames this year. The deep, potent offence is still there and the Giordano-led blueline is still solid. The biggest question mark surrounding the Flames pursuit of another 100+ point season is goaltending.

David Rittich’s .911 save percentage season played a key role in the Flames’ success last year. They had a lot of breathing room thanks to their elite offence and good blueline, but Rittich was the final piece of the puzzle that made them one of the best teams in the league. If he and Talbot can be even just league average, the Flames will be poised to be one of the best teams in the West again. If not, things can go sideways quickly.

As I said earlier, I have a hard time seeing Calgary falling out of the playoffs this year. Their offence is too deep that it would take monumentally bad goaltending to spoil it. Still, they aren’t a shoo-in to be the best of the West again. The Flames have been notoriously enigmatic in recent years, though this group has all of the pieces to buck the trend.