The Final Coutdown

 

 

This is it folks. The home stretch. The Flames have just 15 games remaining and are currently two back of the 8th placed San Jose Sharks.

As of right now, the Sharks project to finish the year with about 93 points based on their current point percentage. As such, we can assume (absent some big surge from any of the three teams currently between the Flames and 8th) that 94 points will get Calgary into the post-season. That means they need 22 points in the final push.

That corresponds to a record of roughly 10-3-2, or a win percentage of about 67%. The question is – how likely is that?

I decided to investigate by going through the Flames six (and a half) ten game segments so far this season. In pure talent terms, Calgary is obviously not a 10-3-2 team – especially with half the club in the infirmary. However, strange things can happen in small samples, so I wanted to see how often the club had cleared the 65% WIN% rate this year in small batches.

Segment 1: 4-5-1 (40%)

Segment 2: 4-6-0 (40%)

Segment 4: 4-3-3 (40%)

Segment 5: 5-4-1 (50%)

Segment 6: 5-2-3 (50%)

Segment 7: 2-2-3 (29%)

Total: 30-25-12

The answer is: not once. The closest they came was 60%.

I chose 10-game segments because it would give us more "pieces" to look at, but out of curiosity I also decided to look at 15-game segments to see if the Flames had managed to echo their required record to make the dance before this point. There was only 4 and a half segments this time:

Segment 1: 6-8-1 (40% – 13 points)

Segment 2: 8-6-1 (53% – 17 points)

Segment 3: 7-5-3 (47% – 17 points)

Segment 4: 7-4-4 (47% – 18 points)

Segment 5: 2-2-3 (29%)

Total: 30-25-12

Not even close. And that’s with Kirpusoff channeling Dominik Hasek for nearly six weeks.

I was hoping to stumble upon some goods news when I began this inquiry, but it’s fairly grim. Only a single time this season have the Flames won 60% of their games in a 10-game sample. If we take bigger slices – like the 15 games they have remaining – Calgary has only even crested the 50% win rate a single time.

So unless the club can go on what would be their best run of the season (by far), it’s over.