We’re now 30 games into the season, and the split in the Flames’ results is becoming impossible to ignore. Depending on how you interpret the data, this team is either quietly improving into a mid-pack roster, or they’re still fundamentally a bottom-tier team that just happened to string together one strong 10-game segment. The thing is, both interpretations actually have evidence behind them, which is what makes this discussion interesting.

One way to look at the Flames is through the lens of regression. Over the first 20 games, the Flames were tracking at roughly 60% of last year’s point pace when you reorder the schedule by opponent. If this past 10-game stretch was simply a hot streak rather than a real improvement, the Flames could easily level back out toward a low-70s point season and stay right in the middle of the lottery picture.

But you can make the opposite case just as convincingly. It’s possible the first dozen games were the real outlier. A mix of new systems, shifting roles, and bad chemistry early on made the team look worse than it actually is. Since about Game 13, the Flames have been much more competitive, and in Games 21–30 they actually performed better than last year’s results against the same sequence of opponents. Their goal differential has stabilized, the defence has looked more consistent, and since Game 7 the Flames have captured about 95% of the points they did last year. That pace would put them in the high-80s by season’s end.

And that’s really the heart of the debate: Are the Flames the team from the first 12 games (2-8-2), or the team from the last 12 (7-3-2)? If the most recent segment reflects who they truly are, then they’re probably too good to bottom out and draft near the very top. But if those ten games were just a well-timed heater, then a slide back toward their early-season pace is entirely possible, and the door to a high lottery pick is still wide open.

So I’ll put the question to the sub: Which version of the Flames do you believe in? Are we seeing the early-season team that struggled to score and looked every bit like a rebuilding roster, or the recent version that’s been competitive, disciplined, and picking up points at a pace way above what we saw in October? And ultimately, do you think this team finishes closer to the low-70s in points or the high-80s?

5 comments

  1. With the quality of goaltending were getting we wont be a bottom feeeder. You lose on purpose bed wetters can complain all you want, but purposefully making the team lose is crazy talk. Even if they trade rasmus, if Wolf and Cooley are as good as theyve looked were gonna win games.

  2. Teams with above average goaltending don’t finish at the bottom of the standings. I think the Flames will finish bottom 10 but Wolf and Cooley are good enough on their own to keep us from bottom 3.

  3. We are somewhere in between, but probably closer to the first 12 than the last 12. The last 12 games was our easiest stretch in the schedule for the entire season. Most of those wins came from beating up other cellar teams and we are solidly under .500 against teams contending for playoff spots.

    We also have the hardest schedule in the whole league from here on out. It won’t be as bad now that our defense is settling in, but almost a quarter of our schedule are against the top 8~ teams in the league. We just don’t have the offense to keep up, unless Cooley and Wolf keep up their play from the last 12 games going all season, we’re in trouble.

  4. I use the trade deadline as the inflection point on the season. The Flames need 36 points in the next 32 games, a 0.5625 record, to be 0.500 at the trade deadline. If none of the playoff/wildcard teams starts to assert themselves, they would still need around 27 points in the final 20 games (a 0.675 record) to have a chance at making the playoffs.

    While none of this is impossible, It is incredibly unlikely that the Flames play well enough from now to the trade deadline, and other teams don’t pick up their pace, to make Conroy think they have a realistic chance at making the playoffs. Even if the Flames only trade away pending UFAs, I don’t see the Flames breaking 0.500 for the rest of the year after they’ve sold off at the deadline.

    The Flames’ playoff hopes are based on such narrow margins at the moment, they will likely die the second the Flames have a 3 or 4 game losing streak. It is entirely possible by the end of this week there is no realistic path to the playoffs for the Flames.

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