Shouldn't this be a happy time?

First, my humble apologies to the Toronto Flames Blogosphere for bailing on the meetup due to the flu bug that I seem to have caught from Jarome (who probably got it from Dion). But it's for the better, you may have seen my crying after that game.

I'd imagine most people would be delirious with the thought of making the NHL Playoffs. Normally, I would be too. I still haven't decided if my trepidation is due to the Flames' early exit last season, if it's a result of entering the playoffs on a four game losing skid, if it's a result of the perceived glorious ineptitude of Jim Playfair, or a combination of all of the above. I'm not excited for the playoffs this year, at least from a Go Flames Go perspective. I'm actually dreading them.

Of course, all is not lost. Detroit is probably the best matchup we could've gotten, right? Nashville or Anaheim are just scary to me. But Playfair is the weakest link, again. Sorry to flog this dead horse, but when I agree with Ray "Duh-Wayne" Ferraro something is truly wrong. And yesterday, all curled up on my couch with a security blanket and the NHL on NBC on the screen, Ray Ferraro made a comment I agreed with: Jim Playfair has looked uptight the past few weeks and that's carried over on to the team. I pulled the blanket over my head and groaned. Jim Playfair, the nail-biting, tooth-picking, nervous nelly of a rookie coach is the clear weakest link of a team that's killer on paper.

As far as I'm concerned, the Flames will be out in the first round. I'm not usually a downer, but this just seem that way to me. It's always better to lower expectations and be pleasantly surprised than to raise them and be devastated, right? Truth be told, so long as Vancouver makes an early exit I'll still enjoy this season. But we've only got about one more year with this lineup to win a cup, and I'm hoping we're going to get a coach that unleashes the potential that our team has. What's Brent Sutter up to these days?

I'll be at Sunday afternoon's game in Detroit, by the way.