Calgary Flames Proud of Their Season Despite Tough Ending

Despite not making the playoffs this year, the Calgary Flames have much to be proud of this season. That was the message from the players after their come-from-behind win in a shootout against the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night.

“I’m sure everybody was saying ‘it’s sad, disappointing’ you know, whatnot. But for me, what a helluva fight. With all the ups and downs this year,” Weegar told the media post-game. “This group came together at the beginning of the year right away. I’m proud of this group, the perseverance, the leadership from everybody, the belief; everybody bought in. And it says a lot, everybody came to work for one another this year, and I think that’s the most important thing.”

Even though the Flames will come up short, the players showed a heart, determination, and fight that many people did not think they had this season. Calgary proved many of the pundits wrong about where they would finish in the standings. Who would have thought the Calgary Flames would finish just outside of the Wild Card Race in the Western Conference?

Not too many people. Many people figured they would finish last in the division and in the Conference. But if you looked at their roster, you saw that this team had talent and was better than the Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks, and Seattle Kraken. None of those teams were picked to make the playoffs.

Calgary was in the fight the whole season. The Flames occupied the last spot in the Western Conference at times during the season. At one point you thought it was just the Vancouver Canucks and Flames battling for the final spot.

In most seasons, a 10-2-3 stretch would get a team into the playoffs. Not to mention, with a win Thursday against the Los Angeles Kings, they will finish with 96 points. That is right, 96 points, and the Flames will miss the playoffs. That is because the St. Louis Blues went on a 12-game winning streak and had a record of 11-2-1 over their last 14 games.

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The Calgary Flames players should be proud of a lot this season. One of which is setting a culture under head coach Ryan Huska of having a never-quit attitude. This team could have mailed it in once the Minnesota Wild got their point against the Anaheim Ducks, when the Flames were trailing 3-1 to the Golden Knights.

However, they do not do that. Instead, the team comes out and rallies to win a game, sending their fans home happy.

“It’s pride. We’re all professionals here at the end of the day,” Nazem Kadri told the media. “It would have been easy just to pack it in, but we don’t do that around here.”

That attitude will carry over to next season and set a standard for what is expected of this team in the future, not only next season but for seasons to come.

“It just says a lot about the culture and the identity here. I think for next year, it kinda sets us up to have higher standards, and higher expectations now,” Weegar told the media after the game. “When expectations were low, we proved people wrong; we did the right thing. Nobody thought we could have done this year, well, next year, people know that we can do this, so next year, I’m assuming that the expectations and standards are going to be higher. That’s what I want here. I want the high expectations, I want people to think that we’re going to be in the playoffs.”

That is the thing, right? The culture was being set, and they were not going to tank. The Calgary Flames fought hard every night despite being one of the worst teams offensively. Calgary ranked 30th out of 32 teams at 2.65 goals per game. It is pretty remarkable that they stayed in the fight all season.

Jonathan Huberdeau had a bounce-back season with 28 goals. Nazem Kadri had a career high of 33 goals on the season. The team saw strides from Matt Coronato, Blake Coleman, Yegor Sharangovich, MacKenzie Weegar, Rasmus Andersson, Kevin Bahl, and, of course, their young rookie goalie Dustin Wolf carried this team.

This is a credit to General Manager Craig Conroy and what he has built in Calgary. He moved out players on expiring deals that did not want to re-sign or extend, and he brought in quality NHL players, prospects, and picks he can use to bolster the team moving forward. Before the NHL Trade Deadline, he added Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost.

Conroy will not be done this off-season. He will still draft and develop. In addition, he will look to extend Rasmus Anderssson, who is eligible on July 1. The goal is to add scoring and maybe another center as the Flames continue to build the right way.

The Calgary Flames have a lot to be happy about this season, even though, as Blake Coleman said on Sportsnet after the game, it was “gut-wrenching” that they missed the playoffs. However, there is much to be excited about for Calgary fans as they look to build on this season.

Though the season ended disappointingly because they came so close to making the playoffs, this young group learned what it takes by playing meaningful hockey down the stretch. Again, nothing is given in this league, and there are only a handful of teams that always make the playoffs. But the experience these players got from playing meaningful games could catapult them into the playoffs next season.