Two games the Flames had absolutely no excuse not to win. Two regulation wins in a row. Five of six points on the road trip. Don’t get excited, but some satisfaction is definitely warranted.

The Flames seemed to be cruising with a 1-0 lead. Curtis Lazar’s perfect pass and Matt Stajan’s perfect redirection gave them what should have been some breathing room – only after it became a 2-0 lead, the Senators seemed to really, really want to score all of a sudden, and the game entered a frantic pace that had not been seen in the 50 minutes prior.

The Flames held on, capturing a convincing regulation win, but man, that got much more tense than it had to be. You can’t really fault anyone there – the Senators didn’t want to go quietly into the night and the Flames responded in kind and, fortunately, David Rittich was up to the task once all hell broke lose.

Basically: Mike Condon had a better game than Chad Johnson did the other night, and that was probably the difference between the Flames having a dominating scoreboard win versus a solid one. More goals would have been nice, but a 1-0 win would have been worth exactly as much as a 5-0 one (implications of positive goal differential aside). And the Flames had a 63.95% 5v5 CF in Buffalo, 57.52% in Ottawa. Good stuff all around.

Just four Flames fell under a 50% 5v5 CF: Mark Giordano, Dougie Hamilton, Lazar, and Mikael Backlund. Three of the four take on a team’s toughest assignments. Matt Duchene’s line smoked the top defence pairing.

Sam Bennett is on a two-game goal streak, once again the result of cleaning up around the net. They don’t have to be pretty, they just have to count. It’s the first time this season he has a goal-scoring streak, though he did have a two-goal game all the way back at the start of December against Edmonton. It’s his fifth point streak of the season.

Bennett’s goal also got him his 26th point of the year, tying his total offence from last season, still with another 13 games to go. Hope is on the horizon that he can hit 30 again; so far, the Flames have just eight 30-point scorers.

(Unrelated, but some other round numbers that can be reached: Sean Monahan hit 60 the other night, Matthew Tkachuk is one away from 50, Hamilton is one away from 40.)

There was also Lazar, playing his first ever game in Ottawa as a member of the enemy, and though he played the second least on the team – just 10:29 in his homecoming – he was crucial in creating the Flames’ game winner, and helping Stajan pick up his 10th point of the season. (Lazar is at eight.)

Apropos of absolutely nothing, just a random thought that popped in my head: when the Flames made the playoffs in 2014-15, their third line was Ferland – Stajan – Jones. This season, their fourth line is Brouwer – Stajan – Lazar. It feels like an echo of similarity, though that’s most likely due to Stajan and Ferland/Lazar’s ages at the time. So hey, if you’re holding out hope for Lazar to turn into something more… maybe?

A 5-0 shutout would have been one way to get the first of a career; a 1-0 or 2-0 one would have been something else entirely. Rittich didn’t give up any goals during actual gameplay – just a penalty shot, and who knows how many of those he’s faced; remember he’s performed poorly in shootouts in the past as someone who has almost never actually had to play in one – and, when pucks got bouncy and things got a little wild, he stuck with them.

Is it the weaker quality of opponent? Did Mike Smith’s sudden reappearance calm things down? Who knows, maybe it’s both, but the good news is the Flames have another two weaker opponents coming up in the Islanders and Oilers, so if Rittich can keep this going, then there’s still hope. The Flames are still in the midst of an easier stretch of schedule and they’re playing about as well as they need to right now, and that extends to the goaltending.

A .967 save percentage for Rittich, as opposed to 1.000. Doesn’t really matter, though. Like he said: it’s two points.

(At some point, though, he should get the chance to be selfish and ball out on a personal accomplishment. If he’s that kind of person. Maybe not in as emotionally frantic a playoff chase as things are right now.)

Just two skaters didn’t register a shot on net: Lazar (who, again, had a very nice assist), and Mark Jankowski (who played the least out of everyone, registering just 9:37 in ice time, including 40 seconds on the penalty kill. Not totally sure what that was about).

Micheal Ferland couldn’t get on the board, but he was trying: he led the way with five shots on net. Ferland has been stuck at 20 goals since Feb. 1 against Tampa Bay. Since then, nothing in 14 games; 30 goals isn’t likely to happen this season, after all. His shooting percentage has fallen from 18+ to 16.3%, so this doesn’t exactly come as a surprise – one could see this coming. Monahan, with 10 more goals than him and a 16.4 shooting percentage, has also taken 60 more shots than Ferland has.

Bennett, for his part, got four shots. He has three more shots than Ferland on the season but nine fewer goals; he’s got an 8.7 shooting percentage. Just more context on a player’s fortunes versus his perception.

Jankowski and Tkachuk have identical shooting percentages – 12.9% – but Tkachuk has double the number of shots and double the number of goals.

(There isn’t an overall point I’m making here – just looking at some numbers and making note of them.)

Oh, and one day a Flame who isn’t Hamilton will have over 200 shots this season. Probably Johnny Gaudreau, since he’s two shots out.

Are the playoffs happening? Ehhhh, it’s an 82-game season. Doesn’t matter where everyone’s at after 69 games. Matters where everyone’s at after 82.

But perhaps worth noting that when things were so bleak before, the Flames hit an easier patch of schedule, and are now two points back of the Ducks with the same number of games played. They’re still fifth in points percentage, but if the gap keeps closing, well then.

Wild card-wise, they’ve leapfrogged the Blues and sit 10th in Western Conference points percentage. Just gotta keep chipping away and hope other teams hit misfortune. A lot can happen in 13-15 games.