Flames Goalie Wants Playoff Shot

Wolf, 24, will be under considerably more pressure this season than he was a year ago, as will the Flames after coming so close. However, the budding star and his teammates are more than ready for the challenge.

“I think this is a common topic with everyone right now is, how you follow up last year? We got beat out by a tiebreaker,” Wolf said. “As an individual and as a whole group, we have a lot to prove, and we have guys with some fire in their guts right now.”

The Flames are still a relatively young team, and defensemen Zayne Parekh and Hunter Brzustewicz - 19 and 20, respectively - potentially becoming full-time contributors is the natural next step in their youth movement. They believe the future could be right now, though, not a few years away.

“Our job with the same team we had last year is to run it back, keep showing everybody, whether you have the most skill, the least skill, are the oldest team, the youngest team, it doesn’t matter as long as we come together as a group we’re destined for good things, especially this year,” Wolf said. “Coming into camp last year, we had the full expectations to make playoffs. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for us; it was more the talking heads in the media saying they don’t think we’re going to make it.

“… You never want to miss out and I was comparing it to like being one win away from the Cup. You’re right there and you feel like you deserve better, but you look back, there were certainly some games that slipped and that’s the long 82-game season. But it’s neat you get to learn from the experience. That was my first real opportunity to do that, so you try to learn from it now and you take full advantage of it in years to come.”