They have had it all season, this uncanny ability to find lightning in bottles, pull games out of fires and rabbits out of hats. Fans have resorted to innumerable metaphors and clichés to explain how exactly the Calgary Flames, just when games appear lost, suddenly find ways to win.
To recap the most recent example: On Tuesday night, just as the province of Alberta was being introduced to a new premier-designate after one of the most shocking election campaigns in its history, the Flames made big news of their own.
They had a potential tying goal by rookie Sam Bennett disallowed by replay, and then Johnny Gaudreau, another rookie, tied the third game of the playoff series against the Anaheim Ducks by scoring with only 19.5 seconds to go in regulation. Finally, early in overtime, centre Mikael Backlund capped the comeback with a wrist shot that found its way through traffic into the net, cutting the Ducks' lead in the best-of-seven series to 2-1.
The 4-3 victory marked the third time in their five playoff wins that the Flames won when trailing after two periods. Moreover, it continued a year-long trend: Calgary managed 10 come-from-behind regular-season wins, third-most in the NHL. Those late-game heroics are the biggest reasons they're in the playoffs at all, earning a spot at the expense of the defending Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings, who had the edge in the all-important Corsi numbers but couldn't win a game in overtime or the shootout to save their playoff lives.
Trying to explain this phenomenon, Flames players and coaching staff usually circle back to a single factor: belief.
But as coach Bob Hartley said Wednesday: "The easiest thing in life is to say you believe. But then you have to bring it on the ice, to show it."
"The mentality in here this year is that we've got nothing to lose," explained Backlund, the overtime hero. "No matter what the score is, we've been going out and playing until the buzzer. If you play with the attitude you have nothing to lose, you're not putting pressure on yourself. You don't get passive or hesitant. You just go out and go, go, go – and just play."
Backlund makes an interesting point about the psychology of the comeback; that it helps if you're playing without fear. Normally, there is a temptation for players to do one of two things when trying to overcome a deficit: Either the player goes all lone wolf and tries to engineer a comeback by himself, or he plays tentatively, afraid of making a mistake. Both tendencies are natural. Usually, they are also a recipe for failure.
Finding the right balance – between trying to do too much or too little – is the challenge.
"With our team, we're really detail-oriented," said winger David Jones. "No one's cheating on either side of the puck. When we get away from our game, that's when we get behind. We're a tough team to beat when we buckle down and start playing on our toes. That's when we're most effective. We've just got to find a way of doing that for 60 minutes."
What's particularly unusual about the Flames is how well they've handled pressure situations with such a young group. Sometimes, poise is associated with experience, yet Calgary has 12 players who made NHL playoff debuts this spring, and a handful of others who had 10 or fewer postseason games on their résumés. It helps that three of Calgary's best young talents – Gaudreau, Bennett and Sean Monahan – all readily embrace the challenge of being difference-makers, rather than shrinking from the responsibility.
Gaudreau seemingly maintains a high confidence level even when things aren't going his way.
He didn't get much done in the first two games and wasn't much of a factor in the third until he got one glorious opportunity – and made it count.
Sometimes, players fighting a slump would give up the opportunity to shoot. Gaudreau didn't. It takes a special sort of player to do that.
"Most of the time, you are a little nervous when you're losing the game and it's coming close to the end. But in this locker room, we've showed how the momentum in a game can change so quickly," said Gaudreau.
"Guys get excited in situations like that now. I'm not sure how to explain it because, honestly, I don't think I've ever been on a team like this before. Most of the time, I've been on teams where we've been up in games or series."
Until Tuesday's win, Calgary's most extraordinary comeback of the season didn't even end in a victory.
It came when they rallied from four goals down in the third to tie the Ottawa Senators at the tail end of a long road trip; they lost in overtime, but earned a valuable point nonetheless.
The circumstances of the Game 3 rally versus the Ducks trumped that – a disallowed late goal, Gaudreau's tying marker, Backlund's winner, all against a team that had won six playoff games in a row.
"The guys closest to the end of the bench, in between where the commentators are, they were smiling, and so I figured it was going to be a goal and then it wasn't," Backlund said of the officials' review that disallowed Bennett goal. "It was a little bit of a shocker and we all got upset, but it was what it was, so we just had to move on and try to get another one. I think we used it as motivation – part of the great story this year has been."