Flames proving that early start is no fluke

Perhaps Calgary Flames captain Mikael Backlund and veteran Nazem Kadri had it right all along.

Far before the club got off to the best six-game start in franchise history and sat in first place in the Pacific Division (12-6-3, 27 points) 21 games into the season, they (along with other Flames veterans) said to expect the unexpected.

At the club’s season-opening golf tournament in September, Backlund said they could be similar to the 2014-15 team that was also young and fuelled by a lack of expectation – and respect – from the outside world. 

“I know from the outside world, there’s little expectations, but inside the room, we’re expecting to go out every night, play hard, and win games,” he said.

“We’re here to make the playoffs…we all want to drive this team and surprise everyone.”

A few days later, Kadri emphasized that there was more talent in the team’s locker room than people realized. 

“Let us go play and we’re going to try to rally around each other and surprise some people,” he said.

Few at the time believed the Flames’ veterans would be so prophetic, but a quarter of the way into the season, Calgary has a clearly-defined identity – perhaps for the first time since their 2021-22 run to the division title.

“We’re a bunch of hungry bastards in here,” goalie Dan Vladar said this week. He backstopped the Flames to a 4-3 shootout win over Minnesota on Saturday. The Flames swept their four-game homestand and now head out on the road for four games. “We all want it and we’re not going to give it away for free.”

Blueliner Kevin Bahl, a pleasant surprise on the top pairing with Rasmus Andersson after coming over in the Jacob Markstrom trade, used a similar phrase. 

“We were kind of pencilled in in a certain way to start the season and I think right away, there was a bit of a hungry dog in us,” he said. 

The Flames’ identity can be summed up in pretty simple terms: outwork the opposition, be tight defensively, have stellar goaltending, and get timely goals. 

Calgary now leads the league in five-on-five save percentage, are third in third period goal differential, and are second in third period comeback wins. They’re also 10th in hits and fourth in blocked shots. The club gained confidence in their three-goal comeback win on opening night in Vancouver. That performance six weeks ago showed them early on that they could win by being more than the sum of their parts. 

“To do something like that early is important because it then builds that internal belief that we’re capable of coming back, no matter what the score is,” said Ryan Lomberg.

Head coach Ryan Huska also tweaked some of their systems, which has resulted in better communication between forwards and defencemen. 

“We’re staying up a lot more in the neutral zone, but I think that comes with our forwards tracking back really hard,” blueliner MacKenzie Weegar said earlier this season. 

“The area that Husk has really covered is always having guys above you. If a guy pinches down, there’s always a guy coming back out. It allows us to stand up a lore more as [defencemen] or come down and pinch. That’s the biggest thing we’ve changed, and I think that’s been huge for us. Everyone is on board with that. We all like that system.”

The Flames’ success is a different formula to most other clubs in the playoff conversation. 

No Flame is inside the league’s top-100 for scoring. Their leading point-getter, Andersson, is 116th. Calgary is 22nd in goals-per-game and, until recently, was bottom-five in power play percentage. Only Nashville and San Jose have led for fewer minutes at five-on-five than the Flames. Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau, and Andrei Kuzmenko, their three highest-paid forwards, have struggled offensively. 

Yet the team – with major contributions from young players like Dustin Wolf, Connor Zary, and Matthew Coronato – continues to show that their identity works and that they’re not done in refining it. 

“We’d like to add to the identity,” Kadri said. Calgary’s power play has started to come around as well, with four goals in the last three games.

“A little, I think, offensive flair. We certainly have that playmaking ability, but I think with some puck luck, we’re gonna start to hit the back of the net and start to see a few more goals. The offensive side is more of an improv.”

After Saturday’s victory, Vladar said that the hunger will remain as they look to further show that their start has not been a fluke.

“Hungry bastards since day one,” he said.

“We’ve just got to keep doing it.”