Game No. 79: Keep it simple, stupid

 

Oh my god there are only three of these left.

For the Flames at least, the season is seriously winding down, with only two tilts remaining after this one. And with two extremely winnable games remaining of their final three, it’s almost enough to make you believe that yeah, this whole playoff thing can still happen.

This Colorado game should be a pushover W tonight. Same goes for Edmonton on Wednesday. I don’t think anyone can reasonably expect a W outta Vancouver on Saturday night in the season finale. But still there is hope.

After all, results keep breaking Calgary’s way, somehow. Even after the memorable Friday win against St. Louis, the Flames stood at a 0.5 percent chance to make the playoffs. After one day of games, the number more than tripled to 1.8 percent. Both are slim margins, obviously. But still, there’s a chance. At least as of this writing. By the time the game gets to the second intermission, things could be considerably different, as Chicago will be just about wrapping up a massively important game with the Lightning.

So all you can do now, I guess, is keep winning. And sure that’s a good strategy from October through June in all instances, but when you’re handed a schedule in which four of your last six games are with Edmonton, St. Louis, Colorado and Edmonton again, you damn well better win ’em. Especially given that you can be fairly sure you’re not going to win that last one against the Canucks.

Already, the Flames have frittered away four points against those three teams in regulation losses to both Edmonton and Colorado, and just think of how much easier all of our lives would be if they hadn’t. There’s a hell of a big difference between 89 and 93 or even 91 points (the latter being if they’d at least gotten both those games to overtime and still lost) right now, and giving up any more to these bottom-of-the-barrel clubs will be the death of them in 2010-11.

Calgary (or at least Jarome Iginla) established some serious positive momentum on Friday night, and now is the time to capitalize on it. Just score a boatload of goals. Not like it’s impossible against the Avs. Score a bunch, don’t allow many or even any.

And also be pulling big-time for the Lightning, obviously.

It’s really, really, really straightforward.