Flames punch playoff ticket
Win over defending champion Kings also puts Jets into post-season
CALGARY — Rewind the clock a year ago, maybe two, and try to find some type of significance to Game No. 81 of the National Hockey League season.
Now, go back to the first game of the 2014-15 campaign, a 4-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Oct. 8, and try to remember what the hockey world was saying about the Calgary Flames. Got it? Well, Thursday’s very meaningful 3-1 victory — Game No. 81 — over the defending Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings was their way of saying I told you so.
For the first time since the 2008-09 NHL season, the Flames are headed to the NHL playoffs. And with the Calgary win, the Winnipeg Jets are also in the playoff mix, that despite a 1-0 loss to the Colorado Avalanche Thursday night in Denver. Out, believe it or not, are the defending champs from L.A.
Consider what the Flames have accomplished — without their captain, someone not named Jarome Iginla. And in Year 2 of a rebuild, with a 21-year-old rookie named Johnny Gaudreau helping to lead the way.
“It’s definitely one of the most important games I’ve played in my career,” Gaudreau said before the Scotiabank Saddledome exploded at 9:36 p.m. local time. “This is the biggest game I’ve ever played, but there’s a few games this year that have helped me prepare for this.”
Like, for example, Dec. 22 at the Staples Center when the Flames produced one of the biggest wins of the season and Gaudreau’s hat trick ignited the 4-3 comeback overtime decision over the Kings.
Not only did that big game end an eight-game losing streak, it gave the Calgarians belief. And it also came over the champs.
And it came in handy, especially in the final five minutes of Thursday’s game in a nail-biting shift in their own zone when Drew Doughty, Mike Richards, Jordan Nolan and Kyle Clifford were toying around with the Flames’ fourth line of Brandon Bollig, Josh Jooris and Markus Granlund.
And again, when Doughty sent a shot whizzing past Flames goaltender Jonas Hiller with three minutes remaining. Also, when the Kings dominated Calgary’s zone again with a minute remaining.
When Jiri Hudler scored into an empty net to seal the deal with 50 seconds to go, the Saddledome went ballistic. He and Gaudreau scored the other goals for the Flames on this night. Nolan was the only Kings’ player able to beat Hiller, who made 33 saves and was named the game’s first star.
There’s one game left on the docket for the Flames: Saturday in Winnipeg.
Yet after their biggest victory of the year, the Flames (4529-7 and 97 points) are playoffbound. The Kings (39-27-15 and 93 points) are not.
“We put ourselves in this position,” head coach Bob Hartley said at the pre-game skate. “Our players deserve to be in this position. I don’t want to be sarcastic, but if we would have gone with many of your predictions, we could have spent the winter in Punta Cana or something.
“We didn’t have too many chances. There weren’t too many reasons to play those games. But we went our way. And, right now, we’re putting ourselves in the situation to move onto the next dance. That’s where we’re at.”
The scenario had been laid out so perfectly that you’d have thought the NHL schedule-maker had a crystal ball.
To have their playoff-qualifying chances come down to the final home game of the regular season, against the defending Stanley Cup champions, whom they already have beat three times — all in exciting fashion — was too good to be true.
And, to boot, it came against old friend Darryl Sutter, who was the Flames general manager the last time this team played meaningful spring hockey.
Still, the hosts showed no nerves. They pounced on a tiredlooking Kings team who had been deflated 4-2 by the Edmonton Oilers Tuesday.
Early Flames pressure from Hudler and Matt Stajan allowed Gaudreau to bat the puck in. The goal had to be reviewed but counted — Gaudreau’s 24th of his rookie season.
The Kings pushed back in the middle frame, out-shooting the Flames 12-4. But Hiller stood tall. Playing without Lance Bouma, who’d blocked a painful-looking shot in the second period of Tuesday’s 3-2 win over Arizona, the Calgarians dressed Bollig in his place and promoted Michael Ferland to Bouma’s line with Stajan and David Jones.
Earlier in the day, Hartley, who hasn’t coached a playoff team since 2006-07 with the Atlanta Thrashers, was asked about pregame butterflies.
“After all those years, you wonder sometimes if there are nerves left,” he said. “Hey, we’re excited. We’ve worked all year for those games, so here we are.”