These are the games that make you wonder whether the Calgary Flames’ battle to snag a playoff spot may ultimately be a war they might not be equipped to win.
Oh sure, there’s plenty of road ahead, and the roster is deep, talented and wise.
The odds certainly suggest at some point this team is going to string together a winning streak of some sort that distances them from the almost apologetic discourse that has people crowing the virtues of nabbing points in 14 of 18.
It’s not good enough.
Their record in that stretch is 9-4-5, which is to say they’ve won exactly the same number of games as they’ve lost.
This team finds a way to squander too many winnable games, which was underscored in Sunday’s loss to Chicago.
This was a game the Flames had to win — the kick starter of a five-game roadie that will now see them face nothing but desperate (and in one case dominant) west conference foes.
When you waltz into the home of the NHL’s worst team, fall behind 3-1 early and find a way to lose in overtime against a young roster that requires more Googling than any other in the loop, it’s a fail.
The opponent was a last-place Blackhawks bunch buoyed by the prospect of a Connor Bedard bounce — a team without the services of Patrick Kane, backstopped by journeyman backup Alex Stalock.
They’d won three of their previous 24 games and sit dead last in the league in goal production.
Yet, there they were, hanging with a Flames club that left Calgary insisting they were starting to feel pretty good about themselves of late.
A 4-3 overtime loss should put an end to that.
Optimists can spew all they want about how the team battled back from an early hole, responded well to Dan Vladar replacing Jacob Markstrom in the opening minute of the second period and managed to fight back to snare a loser point.
Realists are starting to worry.
“Take one penalty, score two powerplay goals and only give up a handful of shots — you should win the game,” spat Darryl Sutter.
“It’s hard to score four goals and win hockey games.”
Yes, that was a dig at the team’s defensive play, and that of his starting goalie who was pulled 35 seconds into the second frame when Philipp Kurashev put the Hawks up 3-1 .
It was a good move, even though no one could pin any of the three on Markstrom, including the opener from Lukas Reichel, the first NHL goal from the nephew of former Flame Robert Reichel.
Asked if the goalie change was aimed at shaking (read: waking) up the team, he was curt.
“No, their goaltender was outplaying ours at that time — it was evident on the scoreboard and shot clock,” he said, re-opening the door for Calgary’s favourite past-time this season: second-guessing every starting netminder assignment Sutter makes.
He was bang on.
Alex Stalock was indeed solid, en route to a night in which he’d set a career-high with 44 saves.
But once again a shot advantage of 47-25 was misleading, as the Flames’ and Hawks were essentially even in high danger scoring chances at even strength.
The Flames are now 4-7-2 in games in which they have 40 or more shots on goal.
No, they’re not snakebitten.
Their quest for shot volume pretty much guarantees they’re never as dangerous as their shot differential might suggest.
Power play goals by Elias Lindholm and Nazem Kadri kept the Flames in the game — the latter tying the game 3-3 midway through the evening.
Vladar’s appearance prompted Jonathan Huberdeau to narrow the gap to 3-2 a mere 27 seconds later.
The Flames backup helped turn the game around with a stellar leg save that was his first of 13 stops in a row before Max Domi ultimately got what he deserved — the game winner — following a pair of earlier rejections by Vladar.
“We’ve got to take the point,” said Sutter, whose club moves onto St. Louis for a pair of games before visiting Dallas and Nashville.
“We didn’t skate yesterday because the Harlem Globetrotters were playing in our building. We had to travel and we couldn’t skate this morning because it was a 6 o’clock game.
“We better be thankful we got a point considering a lot of our young players didn’t show up. Lack of preparation. We’ve got to take them by the hand, some of these young guys.
“Been in the league one to six years some of them. Lack of preparation.”
It’s the same old criticism from the coach, who defaults to ripping the youngsters when things go sideways.
A turnover by Kadri eventually led to the first Hawks goal, a bad line change contributed to the second, an ill-advised pinch by Lindholm played a role in the third and a soft play by Jonathan Huberdeau on the game-winner was pretty costly.
Huberdeau also failed to convert either of the two shots he had when in all alone on Stalock with just over two minutes to go and the game on the line.
The vets seemed every bit to blame on this night as anyone else.
If nothing else, the coach has set the stage to replace a youngster or two in St. Louis with one or both of recent call-ups Jakob Pelletier or Walker Duehr.
Give em credit — these Flames seem destined to keep things interesting.
