The importance of winning Game 2

The Calgary Flames won Game 1 of their Qualifying Round series on Saturday night. While winning one game is a good first step towards advancing, winning the second game is a much bigger step.

Since the 2012-13 lockout season, there have been 105 best-of-seven playoff series contested.

Teams that won Game 1 in a series went on to advance 73 times – 69.5% of all series. But teams that went up 2-0 in their series ended up advancing 44 out of 52 times, increasing their chances of moving on to 84.6%. Every playoff year, there’s usually one team that goes up 2-0 in a series but failing to advance (but it’s usually only one per playoff year). And these examples are in a best-of-seven format; when teams just need three Ws to advance, their odds of moving along after going up 2-0 are even better.

Since moving to Calgary, the Flames have won the first game of a playoff series on 17 occasions (including four times in a best-of-five series). They went on to win 12 of those series, including all four best-of-fives. The Flames have gone up 2-0 in a playoff round seven times, including in four best-of-five series, and they’ve never lost a series after going up 2-0.

In other words? Monday’s game against the Jets is pretty important. Winning it won’t guarantee the Flames will punch their ticket into the conference quarterfinal round, but history suggests it will make their chances of advancing very, very strong.