Flames Fizzle in Playoff Push

BY GREG BUCHANAN

How do you sum up the Calgary Flames’ playoff hopes? One would have to say they have gone from fringe to cringe, from bubble to big trouble. This sputtering, slumping squad has dropped five in a row. During the final minutes of a shutout loss at home by Filip Gustavsson and the Minnesota Wild, they were booed off the ice. Which led to head coach Daryl Sutter saying he would “boo” too. Ouch.

If you go back a week or so, it at least seemed that their playoff push would go down to the wire. That they’d be fighting until the final bell. Now, with under 20 games to go, many are ready to count them out. TKO! It’s hard to imagine a furious push from a team that hasn’t won back-to-back games in almost a month and a half and they haven’t strung together three in a row since early December. The Flames are not even in ninth place anymore. They were just leapfrogged by the Nashville Predators, who shipped out several key pieces as trade deadline sellers.

What’s most troubling, is the home ice lost, which was a snoozer against the Wild, the Flames lacked energy, lacked emotion, lacked the sort of urgency the standings should demand. How do you explain that to the fans in a must-win matchup? Suddenly, mediocre almost seems like a compliment. In a freefall, it always feels that way. The Flames season-long goal differential is now -2, putting them in the red for the first time this season.

Since storming out of the gates at 5-1, the best start in franchise history, they are exactly .500. Only nine teams, all contenders in the Connor Bedard sweeps, have posted a lower point percentage over that same span. The Calgary-based crew has been involved in 37 one-goal games, the most of any team. Trouble is, they are barely winning a third of them, with a 13-11-13 record in those nail-biters.

The question is, will they go down swinging or “Fizzle” without putting up much of a fight?