Calgary Flames forward Matt Stajan gets caught between Phoenix Coyotes defenceman Adrian Aucoin and goalie Jason LaBarbera during the third period of their NHL game in Calgary, March 31, 2010.TODD KOROL/Reuters
Whatever faint hopes the Calgary Flames may have of making the NHL playoffs will be squarely on the line Friday when they take on the freefalling Colorado Avalanche.
It really is must-win. It really is for all the marbles. No cliché is too well-worn to describe what's at stake - for Calgary, to possibly salvage a season that seemed hopelessly lost; for the Avalanche, to keep their Cinderella season alive.
That the Flames are actually in a position to catch the Avalanche for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference has as much to do with Colorado's recent struggles as it does with their own good play. Calgary won its past two games, after dropping a couple last week, modest results considering the urgency of the games they were playing.
Thankfully for the Flames, Colorado has been much worse. At home, on Wednesday, against an Anaheim Ducks team that has long been out of the playoff chase, they were awful. Goaltender Craig Anderson, the primary reason why the Avs are in playoff contention, has been in a rut and was badly outplayed by Curtis McElhinney, the Flames' castoff, who did his ex-team a big favour by knocking off Colorado.
With a victory in regulation Friday, Calgary can tie Colorado at 89 points. Colorado would retain a game in hand and also has the primary tiebreaker - most victories - in its favour. "We're paying attention," said defenceman Cory Sarich, of the scoreboard-gazing that's going on in the Flames' dressing room. "You get a team [Colorado]that's not having things go their way and you have to make that continue."
Of late, the Flames have been getting good work from rookie centre Mikael Backlund, who was forced into a leading role when Daymond Langkow suffered a neck injury two weeks ago. Backlund set up Ales Kotalik for the winning goal against the Phoenix Coyotes Wednesday, won a handful of important faceoffs and potentially prevented a goal by blocking a Derek Morris shot that seemed destined for the back of the net.
Backlund, the one bright prospect on the Flames' horizon, looks more and more as if he will stick with the team for keeps this time around. "It's going to be a war out there," the former Swedish world junior star predicted.
Altogether, the Flames are 9-6 since the Olympic break, but have dropped a place in the standings, thanks to a remarkable surge by the Detroit Red Wings.
One of the smarter things Calgary did as a team following Saturday's no-show 5-0 loss to the Boston Bruins was to focus on short-term thoughts. Slumping team captain Jarome Iginla said it best: All that big-picture thinking, about needing to run the table, was getting in the way of concentrating on the task at hand - winning the next game.
Moreover, playing 15 games over 29 days on five distinct road trips proved to be a physical grind, according to Sarich, who said: "It's been every other night and the ups and downs have been hard. I can't believe March is over. "A lot of years I've been on teams that were battling for eighth place. Some of those years we made it; some we didn't. I've seen it before where a team came in at that eighth or seventh spot and done well in the playoffs because the players are so used to grinding it out every night. That's our position this year. We just have to make it.
"It's right there for us. It's in our hands - and we need a big victory next game."
With a report from Allan Maki