Happy to be home, Flames focus on finishing strong

Calgary Flames blueliner MacKenzie Weegar called the club’s recent six-game road trip the toughest of his career, and now he’s looking forward to playing meaningful hockey down the stretch as the team continues its quest for a playoff spot.

The blueliner and his teammates are relishing the importance of the remaining 19 games in 37 days to close out the season, including a potential four-point swing on Wednesday at the Saddledome versus the Vancouver Canucks – a squad the Flames are fighting with for that final wild-card berth.

"It's probably one of our biggest games of the year," forward Jonathan Huberdeau said. "Every game from now till the end of the year will be like that. We've got to focus one game at a time, and Vancouver's the biggest one." 

“You start the year wanting to play meaningful games down the stretch, and we are doing that right now,” head coach Ryan Huska said.

Huska said there’s a buzz in Calgary with what the team has accomplished so far this season. 

“I love it,” he said. “I think our players have done such a good job at putting themselves in the mix right now and people continue to get excited about it.”

Weegar and Huberdeau are taking advantage of a rare three-day break between home games following a 12-day road stretch where they competed against Stanley Cup-contending teams like the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, and the NHL-leading Washington Capitals.

“We’re using our time wisely,” Weegar said. “Guys are resting, getting what they need from the medical staff if they need it, getting into the spa a bit, the steamer. Just getting your mind off hockey a little bit.”

Huberdeau got cut by a high stick in practice on Monday, briefly leaving for repairs before returning to a chorus of stick taps and jokes from teammates. He said that the Flames’ season-opening 6-5 comeback win in Vancouver all the way back in October set the tone for their success.

“I think it just created that [belief],” Huberdeau said.

“It probably started our group feeling, ‘Hey, if we’re down at any point in a game, we have the ability to come back,’” Huska added, emphasizing how much his group has evolved over the past six months.

Calgary has felt like a settled group throughout the season, a departure from the recent past when they dealt several pending free agents mid-season. Calgary's lone trade this season was dealing forwards Jakob Pelletier and Andrei Kuzmenko and draft picks to the Philadelphia Flyers for Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee. 

Huberdeau said he’s excited about mounting a playoff push with a team that’s almost unchanged from training camp back in September.

“We’re confident in the group that we have,” he said. “We showed it this year…they kept us together. The playoffs will be huge for us. I think it’s important. For me, personally, I want to live that energy. I’ve heard it’s really good in Calgary and I want to live it this year.”

Weegar said that the team’s culture has benefitted from that lack of noise around trade season. 

“It’s been great,” Weegar said, with a happy sigh of relief. “Honestly, the last couple of years here, it’s been a little bit different. It’s nice that nothing went out. We got a couple guys a little earlier. We’ve just focused on our team and who we’ve got in this room. We already have the identity, the culture that we need in this room, and the belief.

“We’ve got two [new] guys in here [Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee], great locker room guys, great guys on the ice. They’ve been doing a great job of stepping in. After this trade deadline, it’s just been focusing on our team in this stretch.”

Weegar noted that the Flames have some control over their fate because of the team’s early-season success. 

They’re seven games above .500 with 19 games left to play. They established their identity and have rarely deviated from it. They know they’re a defence-first outfit with exceptional goaltending that has to win low-scoring, tight games.

The march to solidifying that playoff spot continues with Wednesday's tilt.

“The fanbase knows what’s at stake at here too,” Weegar said. “We don’t need to be gripping our sticks or anything like that. We’re just having fun. If we play our game that we know we can play and the belief in here, I think we’re going to come out on the good side most nights here.”