It’s sort of bizarre, really.
For 75 games this season, the Calgary Flames couldn’t come from behind and secure a win when they were trailing going into the third period. Not once.
Then, in back-to-back games this weekend, they did it twice.
First it was against the Vancouver Canucks, with Jonathan Huberdeau tying things up and then Tyler Toffoli scoring the winner in overtime.
Then, on Sunday night, Milan Lucic tied the Flames’ game with the Anaheim Ducks before Michael Stone blasted the winner with a couple of minutes left in regulation.
That the Flames were behind in both games against non-playoff teams raises some questions, to be sure, but these comeback wins seem to be doing wonders for the Flames’ confidence — and they’ve kept their playoff hopes alive, too.
“It’s huge,” Lucic said Sunday night. “I think being able to come back against a team like Vancouver, who are probably one of the best teams right now, that gave us confidence to go out there and do it again here tonight. Winnipeg won, so we needed to do our part. Five games left and we’re probably going to have to win all of them.”
The Jets winning both of their games this weekend meant the Flames didn’t make up any ground in the race for a post-season spot. They remain two points back of the Jets, who hold the Western Conference’s second wildcard spot, with five games to play.
One of those, on Wednesday, happens to be a head-to-head. The Jets won’t play before that, while the Flames take on the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome. Win both, and the Flames will be two points up on the Jets.
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That’s sort of incredible, given that the Flames were being written off by most only a week and a half ago.
Now, though, things feel different. They’re overcoming the deficits that have haunted them all season — they were 0-18-3 when trailing after two periods prior to Friday — and have their first four-game winning streak of the season.
“I think we just played harder,” Toffoli said when he was asked about Sunday’s comeback. “In the third period, we stuck to our game plan. We got pucks in deep and really hemmed them in. The one time in the third period where they got in our zone and I was out there, our zone was pretty fresh. That’s a good sign.”
Watching the past two games, it’s been hard to identify what, if anything, the Flames have done differently. It feels impossible that it would be as simple as just getting a few good bounces or, conversely, that they were the victims of bad puck luck for the vast majority of the season.
But they’re still out-shooting teams by a wide margin. That’s been true all year. They’re still getting the puck deep and trying to create traffic in front. Their game plan doesn’t seem to have been altered in any meaningful way, it’s just that the pucks are going in now.
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“Even the games we weren’t winning, they were close games and we were in it,” Toffoli said. “(Jacob Markstrom) was keeping us in games. It’s that time of the year and when things are stressful, there’s no panic in our room. We just keep playing and don’t change the way we play and we grind games out.”
The worry now is whether it’s all too little, too late. All season, it’s felt like the Flames were capable of getting hot and going on a nice streak, but it hasn’t happened until now.
The Flames should beat the Blackhawks on Tuesday, although they’ve seemed to struggle against them this season for some reason. They absolutely have to beat the Jets on Wednesday.
They’d presumably prefer that not to fall behind in either game and have to claw and fight their way back in.
If they have to, though, at least they know they can.
“It’s about time,” Stone said Sunday night. “Watching, we’ve played good hockey and not-so-good hockey. That stretches from shift to shift and game to game. We had period of the game where we were not very good and we had periods where we controlled a lot of the play. Tonight, we managed to get one more than the other guys.”
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