Calgary Flames didn’t panic in return to top of NHL, despite year of uncertainty due to COVID-19

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Unless you are the Arizona Coyotes or the Ottawa Senators, it is hard to know what the next NHL season will bring.

The Montreal Canadiens went from the Stanley Cup final to one of the worst teams in the league. Conversely, the Calgary Flames ascended from the ashes of disappointment to the top of the Pacific Division.

On Thursday, a sportsbook listed the Flames as the third choice to take home the trophy after the Colorado Avalanche and Florida Panthers.

That is ahead of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning, Boston Bruins and other franchises of significant pedigree.

It hasn’t been an easy climb. A year ago, Calgary fired its coach before the midway point and finished fifth in the COVID-contrived all-Canadian Group of Seven.

“In simplistic terms, you have to look at it and decide if you feel your team is not good enough or if it has underperformed,” Brad Treliving, the club’s general manager, said this week. “I really felt we had good players and the team had underperformed.”

Rather than make immediate changes, Treliving stepped back for a bit to try to ferret out what had caused the implosion.

“It wasn’t a normal year and I think COVID had a real impact on how we functioned as a group,” he said. “It’s not an excuse, but sometimes you forget that players are no different than you and I. They may make a lot of money, but they are also trying to manage families and stuff.

“After the season I didn’t want to line everyone up and push them over the edge. That would have been the emotional response.”

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Treliving believed the team would benefit from a normal training camp, full regular season and allowing the veteran coach Darryl Sutter to put his fingerprints on the team.

The roster was tweaked a bit but mostly what has happened is that key players have had spectacular years, including Johnny Gaudreau, Matthew Tkachuk, Elias Lindholm, Andrew Mangiapane and Jacob Markstrom.

“We certainly had to make some changes, but the core group was good,” Treliving said. “People came to camp knowing fully what the expectations were. There were no surprises.”

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With their next victory, the Flames will surpass 100 points in the regular season, a milestone that has been reached only twice in the past three decades.

The franchise record is 107 established in 2018-19, a campaign in which long-term playoff aspirations were cut short by a first-round series loss in five games to Colorado.

The Flames went 3-4-1 during the preseason and then lost at Edmonton on opening night and to Anaheim in overtime two days later in their own home opener.

“I thought we were playing really well, but we were sitting there at 0-2,” Treliving said.

The team then won all five games on a road trip, with victories over Washington, the New York Rangers and Pittsburgh among them.

“What I noticed at the time was that there was a real tightness to the group,” the general manager said. “I really believed things were going well for us.”

By Dec. 11, Calgary was 15-5-6 – and was then struck by the largest COVID-19 outbreak in the NHL. Within five days, the organization had 30 confirmed cases, 18 of which were players.

“COVID engulfed the whole team,” Treliving said.

As the Omicron variant spread, all but a handful of members of the roster were affected. With other organizations also hit, the league then shut down as a preventative measure.

Calgary had seven games postponed and did not play for 19 days.

When the scheduled resumed, the Flames won in Seattle and Chicago and then lost three in a row, still on the road, to the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay and Carolina.

“Everyone on the outside looked at that and jumped to conclusions,” Treliving said. “But I was really interested in how we would respond.”

Shortly after that, the team took off on a 10-game winning streak and has gone on to easily fend off division rivals from Edmonton and Los Angeles.

“It is always good to have your group face some adversity,” Treliving said. “That’s how you grow. I liked its resolve, and by and large we have remained a pretty consistent team.”

Calgary is rugged, plays tough on defence and has great goaltending. After Carolina, it has allowed the second-fewest goals in the league.

Entering a game against Arizona on Saturday at the Scotiabank Saddledome, Gaudreau has 101 points, Lindholm has a team-leading 38 goals, Tkachuk has 37 and Mangiapane 31. All are in the best year of their careers.

The postseason will begin in a little more than two weeks. There are lofty expectations but caution as well. Everyone remembers the playoff collapse of 2019.

“The motto we stress is to live for today,” Treliving said. “We are not looking ahead. We are keeping things in the present.”