I think people are being a bit hard on the Flames after this one. The Hurricanes are what they are, and if you watched how they anticipated and closed space it was impressive in this one. Flames had a couple early chances they'd like to have back, but then the Hurricanes really got to their game. I thought it was good to see the Flames slowly push back and tilt things the other way.
No one here is under the impression that the Flames are a better team than Carolina, so why the disappointment with being outplayed by them?
The 2015 Flames made the playoffs by pummeling the teams below them and hanging around with the teams clearly above them. This team has the ability to repeat that formula and make the playoffs simply by winning all the games they should win. Not sure that's for the best, but it seems like the kind of team we have this year.