We are now entering the final stage of the 4 Nations Face-off, a tournament that has captivated the hockey world over the last eight days. With only the 4 Nations Final to be played, NHL teams have hit the ice for a streamlined training camp before play resumes on Saturday. This seems an appropriate time to pick back up where we left off and revisit the Calgary Flames’ current position within the league.
The Flames left off on a sour note in their final game before the break, ceding a 2-0 lead late to the Kraken on Feb. 8, in an eventual 3-2 OT loss. That gut-wrenching defeat made it three straight, their first three-game skid since November.
Prior to the teams’ struggles, they had held the final wildcard spot in the West, and with only the Vancouver Canucks to beat out, Calgary seemed poised to make a run at the postseason. Now, nearly two weeks later, there is much more skepticism surrounding the team and its playoff odds.
The Flames (26-21-8) currently sit three points shy of the Canucks (26-18-11) who own the final wildcard spot, each with 27 games remaining. Conversely, Calgary has a three-point buffer and a game in hand on the Utah Hockey Club (24-23-9), the only non-playoff team within five points of the Flames.
Different playoff models have slightly ranging odds for Calgary to end up with a playoff berth.
Each model takes a different approach to calculating playoff odds, hence the incongruent results from site to site. They ballpark the Flames’ odds at 22-28%, which is around where they’ve hovered for the better part of the previous two seasons. Regardless of how much weight you put into these models, the Flames’ odds are bleak, there’s no other way around it.
There is cause for hope in Flames land, however, as there is positive news on the injury front. Both Connor Zary and Kevin Bahl have resumed practising after extended absences from the team due to injury. The eventual return of Zary gives Calgary some much-needed scoring, they currently rank 30th in the league in goals for per game. Bahl’s re-insertion into the lineup fills a hole on the backend that the Flames have struggled to fill since the 6-foot-6 blueliner went down on January 25th.
Conversely, the injuries ailing the Canucks still linger as it was announced that starting goaltender Thatcher Demko will not travel with the team on their five-game road trip due to a lower-body injury. Additionally, star defenceman Quinn Hughes continues to deal with the injury that held him from participating in the 4 Nations Face-off.
Vancouver and Calgary both have rather difficult paths to the playoffs and share an identical strength of schedule rating of 0.555 (combined point % of remaining opponents) as per Tankathon. Many of the Flames’ toughest remaining match-ups come within the next few weeks, meaning we’ll have a clearer view of their playoff outlook sooner rather than later.
Though their odds of making the playoffs are slim, Calgary has exceeded every expectation set out for them so far. Now faced with an uphill battle, It’s up to them to prove everyone wrong again.
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