The Calgary Flames’ chances of making the post-season are slipping away.
After Saturday’s slate of games, the Flames sit seven points back of a post-season spot, albeit with games in hand on both the teams that currently occupy a post-season position. In this edition of wild card recap, we’ll look at how the Flames, Vancouver Canucks, St. Louis Blues, and Minnesota Wild did since Friday’s wild card recap.
The wild card recap comes out every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday, after the traditionally busy days. Let’s take a look at what has happened recently!

The Flames blow a late lead, fall in overtime

The Calgary Flames have been playing solid hockey over their past six games, but squandered an opportunity for two points on Saturday as they fell 3-2 to the Edmonton Oilers in overtime.
Early in the first period, Yegor Sharangovich opened the scoring with his 13th of the season. However, the Oilers had an answer late in the second period as Viktor Arvidsson tied it up. In the third period, Brayden Pachal restored the Flames’ lead, but Leon Draisaitl had a late answer to send it to overtime.
Unfortunately, Draisaitl scored his second of the game and his 51st of the season to give the Oilers a win, thus picking up two points.
The Flames have a tough match-up in their next game, as they take on the Colorado Avalanche in Denver on Monday. After that, they head to Salt Lake City to take on the Utah Hockey Club. Those two games will be covered in Wednesday’s wild card recap.

The Canucks lost two straight

On Wednesday, the Vancouver Canucks defeated the New York Islanders 5-2. The same cannot be said for their past two games, as they fell 7-6 in a shootout to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday, followed by a 3-1 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Sunday.
Friday’s game was a wild one, as the Canucks jumped out to a 3-0 lead, but proceeded to blow it. Then they made it 5-3, before the Blue Jackets scored three unanswered to take a 6-5 lead with 2:52 left in the game. However, Aatu Räty scored less than 30 seconds later to tie the game at 6-6. The Blue Jackets won in the shootout.
In Sunday’s game, Pius Suter opened the scoring late in the first, but that’s all the Canucks would get past Connor Hellebuyck. Kyle Connor scored to tie the game midway through the second period, with Mason Appleton scoring 6:24 into the second for the game-winning goal. Cole Perfetti capped it off by scoring a goal with just under eight minutes left in the game.
The Canucks return home for the final six of eight games, starting with a game against the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday. That game won’t be covered in Wednesday’s wild card recap.

The Wild fall 5-2

If the Calgary Flames wish to make the post-season, they have to hope either the Minnesota Wild or St. Louis Blues struggle down the stretch. 
Saturday was a good start, as the Wild fell 5-2 to the New Jersey Devils. Nico Hischier and Paul Cotter scored to give the Devils a 2-0 lead, with Marcus Foligno cutting the lead in half with 3:29 left in the first period.The score stood at 2-1 until the third period before Hischier scored the game-winning goal 3:13 in the third period. Ryan Hartman brought the Wild to within one just over two minutes later, but that’s all the Wild got. Hischier completed the hat trick with 5:10 left in the game, and Tomáš Tatar iced it with a goal late in the third.
On Monday, the Devils and Wild are right back at it as the two teams head to Newark to face off in a home-and-home. This begins a three-game road trip against the New York City Metropolitan teams.

The Blues won their ninth straight

The St. Louis Blues are closer to finishing third in the Central Division than falling out of a wild card spot. On Saturday, they won their ninth consecutive game, defeating the Colorado Avalanche 2-1.
Midway through the first period, Zack Bolduc opened the scoring on a power play, but Nathan MacKinnon had an answer just over a minute later. The game-winning goal came with 8:54  left as Pavel Buchnevich scored his 15th of the season for the win.
The Blues return home on Tuesday to take on the Detroit Red Wings. This will kick start a three-game home stand where they’ll play the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Colorado Avalanche.

How the standings look

The Minnesota Wild are in the first wild card spot thanks to a 41-28-5 record with 87 points. They’ve played one fewer game than the St. Louis Blues, who have a 40-28-7 record, also with 87 points while occupying the second spot.
Sitting on the outside looking in are the Vancouver Canucks, who have a 34-27-13 record with 81 points in 74 games. The Calgary Flames have a 34-26-12 record with 80 points, but only have 72 games played compared to the Canucks and Wild’s 74 games and the Blues 75 games played.
Still, the Flames are in a rough spot. They’re seven points out of a playoff spot with 10 games to go. Even if they win all their games in hand, a tough ask given some of the teams they’ll have to play against, they’d be a point behind the Blues and three behind the Wild.
On the other hand, the Flames’ first-round pick will transfer to the Montréal Canadiens if they fail to finish in the top 10. They currently have the 16th-fewest points, only six more than the New York Islanders, who sit 10th. There are a whole lot of teams that’ll need to pass the Flames – the Detroit Red Wings, Columbus Blue Jackets, Utah Hockey Club, Canadiens, and New York Rangers.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens the rest of the season.
Ryley Delaney is a Nation Network writer for FlamesNation, Oilersnation, and Blue Jays Nation. They can be followed on Twitter @Ryley__Delaney.
Sponsored by bet365: