It was a heartbreaker. And yet, it didn’t necessarily feel that way late Saturday inside the home locker-room at the Saddledome. Between some understandable gripes and grumbles about a recent string of bad fortune, the Calgary Flames were more hopeful than disheartened as they digested a 3-2 overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights at the Saddledome.
“Really tough bounce,” said captain Mikael Backlund, referring to Reilly Smith’s fluke from below the goal-line for the sudden-death strike. “Huge point, though.” True enough. With six dates remaining, the Flames are now four points back of the Minnesota Wild for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. They do have one game in hand, plus a head-to-head with the Wild, who visit Cowtown on Friday.
“You’ve gotta think of it as glass half full, too,” stressed rookie netminder Dustin Wolf after a 31-save showing against the Golden Knights. “One point is better than no point. Obviously, I think we deserved better (Saturday). But the hockey gods aren’t really helping us out a lot right now with bounces. At some point, it’s going to turn. And when it does, I think we’re all going to be laughing about it. In the meantime, we have to work our butts off for the last six games and find a way to get 12 points.”
Any script writer would agree that Saturday’s ending was cruel. Not just because Smith was attempting to throw a pass into the slot when the puck instead deflected off MacKenzie Weegar’s skate, then glanced off Wolf’s back for a junker. But because that rotten bounce came off Weegar’s right foot, already throbbing because of a gutsy shot-block on Jack Eichel’s blast earlier in the bonus session. While he didn’t miss a shift, it was plain to see that the workhorse defenceman was playing through pain.
“It was obviously a tough bounce at the end of the game,” Weegar said during his appearance on After Hours. “I hate excuses and all that stuff but it’s been tough for us to get a little bit of a break right now. But our team, we battle through that stuff. As much as it’s a tough loss, we gained a point out of it. We’re still in the conversation. And there’s full belief in that dressing room, still right now.”
Weegar logged 28:08 in Saturday’s showdown with the Golden Knights, the second-highest total by any Flames skater in a single outing this season. The hosts needed a clutch penalty-kill with 1:29 remaining in regulation, and he was key to surviving that scare. Certainly, he deserved better than a pat on the back from teammates after Smith’s overtime winner and an ice-pack for his foot.
“Those ones, you just have to move one from pretty quickly,” said Flames head coach Ryan Huska. “I thought MacKenzie was excellent tonight. A really good player for us.”
During Saturday’s middle stanza, with the out-of-towners up by a pair, Blake Coleman beelined toward the net on an offensive rush, re-directing a sweet feed from linemate Joel Farabee and then doing his darnedest to avoid contact in the crease. While Akira Schmid made the initial save, the puck had leaked through his gear and looked to be oh-so-close to trickling across the line. It was a whisker shy of counting. Another millimetre and it’s a marker. As a zoomed-in replay was shown on the big-screen, a lot of folks in red — from players to coaches to fans — were thinking the exact same thing. ‘Not again.’ There’s been a few close and/or controversial calls of late.
“I feel like we haven’t gotten any bounce to go our way in numerous amount of games,” Wolf groaned. “I mean, how many times has the puck just sat on the line and not crossed?” Huska wouldn’t mind if he’s watched that particular replay for the last time.
“I always feel like (the bounces) even out over the course of a year, so maybe we’re going to get ours coming up here in the next six games,” said Calgary’s bench boss. “That’s the way you kind of have to look at it. When you work, you eventually get your bounces. To me, it’s a matter of time. One is going to go in for us, or one will go off a skate and not go in.”
The Flames will now pack for a two-game getaway to California. It’s crucial that they return with four points. They are, after all, playing a pair of playoff pretenders in the San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks.
“This time of year, I’ve said before and I said it to the team, it’s like the playoffs … ” said Backlund, who assisted on Matt Coronato’s tying tally in the third period against the Golden Knights. “No matter the result, you have to turn the page tomorrow and just focus on the next game, find a way to win the next game.”
They’ll also hope the Dallas Stars find a way to win Sunday’s matinee in Minnesota. That would be helpful.
“There’s still a lot of fight in this group,” said unheralded defenceman Joel Hanley, who sparked his squad when he scored with 7.7 seconds remaining in Saturday’s middle frame. “This was a big point. It’s going to come down to the end, and we’re just going to keep fighting.”
“We came into the year with everybody saying we’re going to suck and look at us now — we’re fighting for our lives to sneak in,” Wolf echoed. “And you know what? We’re going to get in. In the meantime, this one stings, but we move on to the next one.”
