Game No. 39: Everything that’s wonderful is what I feel when we’re together

Can it be? A real chance to win several games in a row?

This is nearly uncharted territory for Calgary this season. The chance to get to four straight wins? That’s only happened one other time this season, and that way back in October. They responded to that by giving up six to Colorado at home. Interestingly, though, the only other time Calgary won three in a row this season, they picked up that final win against the Oil.

And maybe it’s just me, but I feel like this is a much different team than the one we saw over the past two-plus months. All of a sudden, it’s a team that can control games for lengthy periods of time, get command performances from guys they depend on to provide them and so forth. In addition, they almost — ALMOST — seem well-coached (see Brent Sutter’s judiciously-used timeout late in last night’s game).

Witness last night’s outing from the fourth line, which pretty much carried the game from start to finish, and the generally jovial attitude all over the ‘Dome. Fans were actually pleased to be in the building. There was a preponderance of smiling whenever the cameras cut to interim GM in the executives’ suite. The team seemed upbeat on the bench. All accounts of the dressing room attitude bore this out as well.

Would you have imagined this just a week ago? Perhaps the hold Darryl Sutter had over this team was not unlike Sauron’s over Middle-Earth. When he ruled, there was naught but sadness and mistrust from all corners, but now, his spell broken, all the peoples of Calgary can finally know joy again.

I’d imagine that even a loss to Edmonton tonight, while disappointing, would not dash Calgarians’ newfound optimism for the team (the future, of course, is another story), and would only briefly dim the smiles around the Saddledome.

Dare I say it’s almost not the worst thing ever to be a Flames fan right now?