Going 1-1-0 in a late December Battle of Alberta home-and-home, we saw a tale of two Flames teams.
First, the ugly truth. The Ghost of Flames Past & Present. From the exodus of stars in the early 2010s including Jarome Iginla, Jay Bouwmeester, and Miikka Kiprusoff, to a five-year rebuild where Brad Treliving put together five top ten draft picks below the age of 25.
To the collapse, jump-started by a Battle of Alberta second round playoff loss, Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk found new teams, kicking off yet another exodus of high level talent.
To the band-aids. Nazem Kadri. Jonathan Huberdeau. MacKenzie Weegar. That 5-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Tueday night underlined the harsh reality of an organization desparately trying to hold on to the idea of being competitive without taking the proper steps to do so.
2-on-1 after 2-on-1, powerplay goal after powerplay goal, the Calgary Flames don’t have the talent or speed to play river hockey with a team like the Oilers, who spent over a decade piling up losses in order to put a few star players together.
Four days later, we got to see the other side of the coin.
On the back of Dustin Wolf, the team played a concerted 60 minutes. Scoring came from three different lines. The undrafted Adam Klapka played arguably his best game in a Flames sweater. Calgary pulled out a 3-2 victory to get back on track.
The two points are important, Calgary now sits two wins below .500 with a 16-18-4 record. Seattle, San Jose and Utah are all currently battling it out for the final wildcard spot in the West and all three find themselves with a .500 points percentage on any given night.
More crucial was the statement that a win like that makes. The Flames can beat the league’s better teams. They can steal points from rosters championing first overall draft picks. Lately, they’ve been mostly just rolling teams that aren’t bringing strong efforts against a team near the bottom of the standings.
What a Christmas present. A glimmer of hope. A fire in the light.
Perfect timing; things are about to get weird.
Dog’s Breakfast
Take a look at Calgary’s schedule to finish the year and into January. Courtesy of ESPN.
Fringe teams, early starts, Nashville aside, an absence of bad blood. The Flames have a real shot at going two wins above .500 through that stretch. That would put them in the playoff picture.
Waiting at the end of this new year stretch?
The Edmonton Oilers on February 4 before the three-week Olympic break kicks off. Seems like a bit of an injury risk for Teams Canada (McDavid), Germany (Draisatl), and Sweden (Andersson & Ekholm), but it will be a fun one. Edmonton can still take the season series by a point if they win in regulation and Calgary surely wants to go 3-1-0.
Remembering Guy
One of Calgary’s first star players, Guy Chouinard’s passing was announced on Sunday night at the age of 69.
Many fans from that era consider the playmaking center as the best passer that the Calgary Flames have ever had. Despite playing down the middle, we was a wingman and partner in crime for Lanny McDonald and Kent Nilsson. There is no way that the former gets close to 66 goals in the 1982-83 season without Guy’s sublime set-up skills.
Upon his retirement, Guy moved to coaching and grew into one of the best coaches in QMJHL history, manning a bench from 1985 to 2010. Chouinard coached the second-most games among all QMJHL coaches with 988, recorded the most wins with 515, and coached his teams to the most championships at four.
Rest in peace, Guy.
KEEP READING:
How Sustainable is the Calgary Flames Current Hot Streak?
Pacific Division: A Holiday Gift for Each Team
Into the Crevasse – Brzustewicz – Scheduling Misplay of the Year
Who Are The NHL’s Fastest And Slowest Teams?
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