The final two games will dictate who Calgary plays in the first round

The Calgary Flames are a wildcard team. They will finish in one of the two wildcard playoff spots in the Western Conference, and so they’ll play a division winner. Right now, the Flames are tied with the Nashville Predators in the standings. One of them will play the Anaheim Ducks in the first round, while the other will play the Chicago Blackhawks. (Probably – if the Ducks lose out there is a chance either the Oilers or Sharks could take the division, but they’d have to win out, too. The Ducks clinch the Pacific if they win both of their remaining games, or if they win one and Edmonton loses one.)

Which team will the Flames end up playing? With two games remaining for both teams, we’ve handicapped things.

Here are the remaining games, with each team’s record over their last 10 games included in brackets.

The Thursday games appear to be coin tosses based on recent records, while there appear to be some obvious favourites in Saturday’s games (Winnipeg and Calgary). Depending on the outcomes of Thursday’s games, it’s entirely possible that one (or both) of Saturday’s games could be incredibly important or completely irrelevant in terms of playoff seeding for the Flames and Predators.

Based on how many points the Flames earn and how many Nashville earns, here’s a handy guide to Calgary’s first round opponent:

** -The Flames have a 40 to 38 edge in the regulation/overtime loss tie-breaker, so if the Flames win two shootouts and Nashville wins twice in regulation, then we would go to the head-to-head tie-breaker (which Nashville would win). Otherwise, if the two teams have the same number of points, the Flames will win the tiebreaker.