Despite being heavy favourites heading into the playoffs, the Calgary Flames find themselves out of the race for the Cup after a 4-1 series defeat at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche. Succinctly, the Flames were beat by the better team. That’s hard to digest, especially when looking at on-paper comparisons, but on the ice, that’s exactly what happened.
As the old saying goes, anything can happen in the playoffs, and the Avalanche hitting their stride at the exact time the Flames were discombobulated is one of those things. It happens. It’s true that hoping for career-best performances from the Flames again next season would be foolish and that not having a deep run this season was a missed opportunity.