When the curtain was raised on the 2024-25 National Hockey League season, very few people outside of 555 Saddledome Rise expected much from the Calgary Flames. The prevailing view was that the Flames, depleted by 18 months of departures of key players, would plummet down the standings and land with a thud.

During Ryan Huska’s first season, the “disassembly-in-flight” 2023-24 campaign, the Flames were eliminated from the post-season in early April. The outside expectation was that this season’s edition of the Flames would be worse than that, that they weren’t a team worth keeping an eye on, and that they wouldn’t be a concern in the playoff picture.

On Tuesday night, during the second intermission of their second-last game of the season, the upstart 2024-25 Flames finally ran out of runway and were mathematically eliminated from post-season contention.

After learning that they wouldn’t be making the playoffs and trailing 3-1 to the Pacific Division leading Vegas Golden Knights, the Flames emerged from their locker room and rallied back to ultimately close out their home schedule with a 5-4 shootout victory. The Flames got goals from Morgan Frost, Nazem Kadri, Mikael Backlund and Adam Klapka in regulation, followed by a shootout-deciding effort from Frost to give the Flames the extra point.

Speaking to the media following the game, alternate captain MacKenzie Weegar ruminated on the result and the Flames’ season as a whole.

“I’m sure everybody was saying it’s sad, disappointing, whatnot, but for me it was, what a hell of a fight, you know?” said Weegar. “Like, with all the ups and downs this year, you look back and you kind of, you know… I kind of saw the jumbotron there and when they said thank you to the fans and the memories that go back… And just, it’s such a grind all year long and it’s a hard league to win it. And this group came together at the beginning of the year right away. And I’m proud of this group, the perseverance and the leadership from everybody, the belief, everybody bought in and it says a lot. Everybody came to work for one another this year and I think that’s the most important thing. So credit to this team, man. We really did fight our fight with all we had.”

“Credit to St. Louis, ” added Weegar. “I mean, they went on a run that I don’t think anybody expected. So, you know, it would have been nice to get a little help in some areas. But, you know, I just look back and love this group of guys. It’s a special group. It’s just too bad we couldn’t see the damage we could have done in the playoffs.”

Backlund, closing out his 17th season with the Flames and second as the club’s captain, spoke about the team’s performance and resiliency.

“Came in this year, no one believed in us, but we believed in ourselves from day one,” said Backlund. “I started training camp and right away you could sense that everyone was buying in and was believing. And when everyone buys in and believes, you can achieve a lot of big things. And unfortunately, we didn’t make it to playoffs. But we battled all the way to the end and we were so resilient all year. And that says a lot about this group. We were playing for each other all year.”

In the 26 games following the 4 Nations Face-Off, the Flames went 14-6-6. In the 19 games following the trade deadline, the Flames went 11-4-4. In a lot of seasons, that sort of finish would be enough to get a team above the playoff cutline. Unfortunately, the Flames finished just below it – in no small part due to a downright historic run by the St. Louis Blues over the past couple of months.

“Felt like we’ve been rolling,” said Kadri. “Playing some good hockey. Just unfortunately, you know, couldn’t get any help.”

Depending on the result of Thursday’s finale in Los Angeles, the Flames will finish with (at least) 40 wins and 94 points. That’s an improvement over a tumultuous 2023-24 campaign, and the hope is that the club has set the table for ongoing success.

“They’ve come a long way, I think they really have,” said head coach Ryan Huska. “Like you always look for, you want a little bit of a foundation for you to always come back year after year after year. And I think they’ve established a bit of that now, where they know there’s a certain way they have to play. And I think in time, there’s always going to be corrections and adjustments that we can work to make our team better, but what they were able to do this year in regards to creating a bit of a reputation for our team or an identity as to how we play every night. That is a great place to start with.”

The Flames will conclude their regular season on Thursday night when they visit the Kings.