The Calgary Flames are finally back in action following the extended Olympic break, as they head to California to face the San Jose Sharks.

The Flames’ visit to San Jose kicks off a pretty hectic stretch of hockey for the red team that will involve a moderate amount of travel, a lot of tough opponents, and just a heck of a lot of hockey to be played in a relatively short timeframe.

Let’s dig into how the final 26 games will look.

Things start off with three games in four nights in California: Feb. 26 at San Jose, Feb. 28 at Los Angeles and Mar. 1 at Anaheim.

The Flames then head home and play three home games, with the trade deadline sandwiched in there, too: Mar. 3 vs. Dallas and Mar. 5 vs. Ottawa, the trade deadline on Mar. 6, then Mar. 7 vs. Carolina.

After that, they’re off to the east coast for five games in eight nights: Mar. 9 at Washington, Mar. 10 at NY Rangers, Mar. 12 at New Jersey, Mar. 14 at NY Islanders and Mar. 16 at Detroit.

After that, it’s back home for six games, playing every second night: Mar. 18 vs. St. Louis, Mar. 20 vs. Florida, Mar. 22 vs. Tampa Bay, Mar. 24 vs. Los Angeles, Mar. 26 vs. Anaheim and Mar. 28 vs. Vancouver.

Their final road trip is a six game monster: Mar. 30 at Colorado, Apr. 2 at Vegas, Apr. 4 at Anaheim, Apr. 7 at Dallas, Apr. 9 at Colorado (again) and Apr. 11 in Seattle.

They immediately leave Seattle and play the next night, Apr. 12, at home against Utah. Then they conclude their regular season at home on Apr. 14 against Colorado and Apr. 16 against Los Angeles.

The Flames will play 26 games over 50 days. Remember the 2021-22 season, when the Flames’ schedule had to be massively overhauled and compacted due to a COVID-19 outbreak wiping out nearly three weeks of the Flames’ schedule. They finished their campaign off with 25 games in 50 days, so this schedule is actually worse.

They have 12 home games and 14 road games. They play three sets of back-to-backs, all with some travel: Los Angeles/Anaheim, Washington/Rangers and Seattle/Utah (at home). We will admit that the LA/Anaheim travel isn’t awful, but every other trip involves planes and the associated headaches.

The Flames play 15 games against current playoff teams, including eight of their last nine games. Their final road trip of the season, the six game Western Conference crisscross, is entirely against playoff teams. Heck, they play Colorado twice on that road trip, and then again when they return to Calgary.

The Flames have multiple days between games just twice, and both times on that last road trip: Mar. 31-Apr. 1 and Apr. 5-6.

Finally, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed your NHL insider of choice pondering whether the Flames will make more roster moves. The Flames have already traded pending unrestricted free agent Rasmus Andersson, and we’ve seen names like Blake Coleman, Zach Whitecloud, Nazem Kadri and others bandied about as potential trade chips as the Flames try to load up with picks and prospects.

The Flames are, at present, 29th overall – fourth from last – in the NHL standings. There’s a decent chance that their roster will become more depleted before the Mar. 6 trade deadline, which would potentially make the final stretch of games a bit of a slog.

We’ll see how everything plays out in the coming weeks.

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