There is no doubt in any of our minds that tonight’s game is a very important one and a must win to continue to stay in a playoff spot. Dallas is in the must win mode as well, but they need so much help from other teams winning and losing it’s pretty much a lost cause.
They will be playing for the spoiler tonight as far as I’m concerned, quite possibly without their start player Jamie Benn. He missed practice on Tuesday after taking a few hard hits from the Sabres on Monday evening. He’s a game time decision at this point in the day and would surely be a big hit for Dallas’ offense if he were to be out. This of course is great news for us Flames fans!
Ramo will get the nod tonight for the Flames with his fourth start in a row. He’s been good lately winning three of his last five games and posting a .913 save percent. Tonight, we need him to be stellar as Dallas is a team that can score a lot of goals; thankfully they let in a lot of goals too.
There are nine games left in the season, which of course leaves 18 total points available on the board. It would be great if Ramo was able to carry over his great play into these last nine games so we can secure a playoff spot and prepare for our matchup.
Remaining Games:
Dallas Minnesota Nashville Dallas St. Louis Edmonton Arizona Los Angeles Winnipeg
Since the Flames will be in Dallas next Monday, it would be great to win tonight’s game and set the tone for another win come March 30th vs the Stars. It’s a winnable schedule ahead in my eyes, but the boys will have to dig deep. They have been somewhat tired lately it seems, but the overall effort is still there and that’s what counts. A quick goal or two tonight and Dallas may fold like a cheap lawn chair. A win tonight would basically crush the Stars hope of making the playoffs.
A few notes:
Douglas Murray: has been released by the Flames on his tryout.
Kris Russel: The Flames are proud to announce that Kris Russell is one of the recipients of the J.R. McCaig Award. Kris and Lori Warner will be presented their awards before tonight’s game by Jeff McCaig and Rob McCaig who are the son and grandson of the late J.R. McCaig.
For those of you who forget what the award is all about:
“The Flames lost owner J.R. “Bud… McCaig 10 years ago following a lengthy battle with cancer. Mr. McCaig was a long-time member of the Flames family and a great contributor to the Calgary community. The J.R. McCaig Award honours two Calgary Flames personnel, a player and a staff member, who best exemplify Mr. McCaig’s enduring virtues of respect, courtesy and compassion for all individuals he encountered both in his professional and everyday life.…
So far so good at home this season, let’s hope to improve that home record to 22-13-4 after tonight’s game.
If you missed this mornings write up here it is:
Quick message to my readers; Sorry for the lack of content over the last few days. I have been on the road and unable to post. In fact, I'm currently writing this one on a flight to Montreal!
Anyways, the Calgary Flames are in for quite the challenge moving in to the playoff race as all teams around them in the standings are showing no signs of slowing down.
Oddly enough, I wrote a blog a month or so ago when captain Mark Giordano went down that went on to explain how the team is likely to react and or play without their top pairing defenseman and arguably most important player on the team. Well I don't need to say this, but the team has surprised the masses, one again, by continuing with their strong play without Giordano. In fact, and what's rather impressive, is that Calgary actually holds a stronger winning percentage without their captain than with!
Now it should stand to reason that with a smaller sample size the numbers will be skewed, however this shouldn't take away from how unexplainable this really is. Like I mean, this is a guy who logs big minutes, provides leadership, and puts up points. He wasn't replaced by anyone who could be considered a close equal, and yet this team proves their worth to the rest of the league, and most importantly their fans.
With every passing game and every additional point the thought of playoffs becomes ever so much more of a reality for this team and it had reached the point where Johnny Gaudreau playoff beard discussions have become a past time for fans over the Twitter. It's an exciting time for the franchise and something that should certainly add to the development of their young core as they learn early on what it takes to succeed.
I'm not sure how the remainder of the year is going to play out for this group and whether they can.... Wait for it.... Sustain their play as teams around them with more experience shift gears, bit it's safe to say that we should expect the unexpected. I'll optimistically say that the team should have their postseason chance with a .600 winning record or greater.
I'll have more and better coverage with respect to their upcoming game as soon as reach my hotel and settle in after a day of meetings.
Thanks for reading.