Adam Proteau discusses the Calgary Flames losing 8-2, the Pittsburgh Penguins losing their playoff spot and the Philadelphia Flyers losing in a good way.
Welcome back to Screen Shots, a regular THN.com column in which we take a look at a few different hockey topics, and break them down in a few short paragraphs. Let’s get to it.
The Calgary Flames lost a crucial chance to make up ground in their race for a Western Conference Stanley Cup playoff spot when they lost to the L.A. Kings Monday night.
It wasn’t just that the Flames lost Monday – it’s how they lost. Calgary gave up four goals and produced none in the first period, and by the time the second period ended, they were trailing 6-1. The game, effectively, was over. The final score was 8-2 in favor of the Kings.
In the Flames’ two recent losses, starting goalie Jacob Markstrom has surrendered 12 goals, and his individual regular-season stats (including an .889 save percentage and 2.98 goals-against average) aren’t going to be good enough for Calgary to vault into a wild-card berth in their remaining 11 games.
There will be a lot to answer for this summer in Calgary. A Flames team that won the Pacific Division by a whopping seven points last season now faces the very real possibility of being out of the playoffs completely.
GM Brad Treliving may pay for it with his job, and the status of coach Darryl Sutter also would be in serious question just one year after he won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s best coach.
Calgary is four points behind Winnipeg for the second and final wild-card berth, but they’re just one point ahead of the 10th-place Nashville Predators, and the Preds have three games in hand.
Calgary is not out of the playoff race just yet, but they’re pretty much into must-win territory from this point through the end of the post-season.
Speaking of squandering a playoff spot: the Pittsburgh Penguins have dropped four games in a row, with all four losses coming in regulation time. They’re 10-10-1 since the all-star break, and they’re 3-5-1 since the trade deadline.
Consequently, the Pens have slipped out of the final Eastern Conference wild-card position, with the Florida Panthers overtaking them by a single point in the standings. Pittsburgh and Florida each have 12 remaining regular-season games and have a match in hand on the seventh-place New York Islanders, who sit one point ahead of Florida and two points ahead of Pittsburgh.
It’s increasingly possible the Penguins will be the last team seeking a seat in the NHL’s late-season game of musical chairs.
Even with just a slightly above-average output since the trade deadline, Pittsburgh would be much closer to the New York Rangers for third in the Metropolitan Division than they are at present. Now, the worst possible ending to their season might very well be what’s ahead for them.
One non-playoff team that is doing it right as the season draws to a close is the Philadelphia Flyers. They’ve been embracing their inner tank, with a 2-6-2 record in their past 10 games, a 3-10-3 mark since Feb. 9 and a 2-4-0 mark since GM Chuck Fletcher was fired.
A few more losses and they could drop as low as the league’s 29th-best record this year, with an outside shot at 30th overall. That gives them a solid chance at junior hockey phenom Connor Bedard and almost guarantees they’ll land the type of high-impact player they haven't drafted in some time.
No Flyers fan will remember this last stretch of competitive agony if Philly comes away with a key building block for the next decade or more. That’s where the Flyers’ draft and development team has to be in for the next draft and numerous drafts ahead.
You usually don’t get generational NHL talents by trade, and you don’t get them via free agency. You only really get them through the NHL draft, and teams like Philadelphia need to do whatever is necessary to finish as high as possible in this deep draft. That means they must do poorly in their final 13 games and go out on a low-in-the-standings-but-higher-in-the-draft note.
Players will always say they want to win every game they play, but if it means the difference between the Flyers drafting fourth or-fifth-overall – or better – Philly fans will be rooting for their team to be on the losing side of the ledger the rest of the way this year. A handful of wins won't have any material effect on the Flyers’ trajectory, but a good deal of defeats could make the road ahead significantly better.