Surprising Playoff Run Just the Start of Calgary Flames Becoming a Force in West

They were called a fluky regular-season team by some critics, and they entered Sunday down three games to one in the Western Conference semifinal to the Anaheim Ducks. So why is everybody in Calgary so happy about the current state of the Flames?

The answer is obvious: There is a lot to look forward to.

Calgary isn't the youngest team in the NHL; 12 teams, in fact, are younger than the Flames' average age of 28.25. Calgary won 10 games when trailing after two periods and tied for first in overtime wins with nine. Critics scoffed that the Flames were this season's Colorado Avalanche of last year, a team that got a lot of late miracles to win a division title but missed the playoffs the following year. The same thing might happen to the Flames, they said.

Except, unlike the Avs of 2013-14, the Flames won a first-round playoff series. Plus, they did it without their best player, defenseman Mark Giordano, who has been out a couple of months with a torn biceps injury. Calgary went 12-6-3 in the 21 regular-season games Giordano missed down the stretch to earn eighth place in the rugged West. 

Giordano wasn't surprised by what his team accomplished without him, telling the Globe and Mail's Erik Duhatschek:

"

It wasn't unexpected in our room. The way our season's gone, the way the predictions were at the start of the year, you ask anyone around the league, "Who's the hardest team to play against work-wise?" I think we're right up there with anyone. Our coaching staff's done a great job, first with the work ethic, which is there every night, but also with the details we play with. That's why we are where we are.

"

The Flames almost certainly will be finished soon, as Anaheim does not look like a team that will blow a 3-1 lead. But with the young talent that Calgary has, it seems a certainty it will be a playoff team for a while to come. Forwards such as Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau, Sam Bennett, T.J. Brodie, Joe Colborne and Mikael Backlund are good and should get better. They all play the game at a high pace and, best of all, work hard and seem to want to stay humble.

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Gaudreau, a Calder Trophy finalist, was the steal of the 2011 NHL draft. Taken by Calgary at No. 104, Johnny Hockey is a certified folk hero already among Flames fans. His tying goal late in regulation of Game 3, a top-cookies wrister from a tough angle, was a thing of beauty that is still being talked about.

"He [Gaudreau] sees the game two steps ahead of everyone else," Giordano told the Los Angeles Times' Lisa Dillman. "He's got that game-breaker (quality)…a lot like that guy in Chicago. Patrick Kane scores big goals, and I feel like Johnny is in that same ballpark with him this year."

Yet, not everyone is ready to proclaim the Flames as the next great team in the West.

Former NHL player Dave Reid, who won a Cup playing for coach Bob Hartley in Colorado in 2001 and is an analyst with the NHL Network, told Bleacher Report he worries some about the comparison to the Avs of last year.

"I'm not sure I'm as high on Calgary as some others," Reid said. "They've got good young players in Monahan, Gaudreau and Bennett, and (Jiri) Hudler is a good veteran player. But there's not much else up front. They do have an excellent top four on defense, solid goaltending and a good coach. But they will be like the Avs next year, struggling to get back into the playoffs."

For now, that's a good concern to have. It all looked so dark in Calgary just a couple of years ago. Under general manager Jay Feaster, the organization continued to flounder and was embarrassed by a 2013 failed attempt to sign Colorado's Ryan O'Reilly as a restricted free agent. It was later revealed that Calgary likely would have lost O'Reilly for nothing—plus two first-round draft picks—even if Colorado hadn't matched the offer, because of waiver rules.

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Under a new management group, led by GM Brad Treliving, assistant GM Craig Conroy and president of hockey operations Brian Burke, the Flames finally appear just as stable off the ice as on. 

The coach who has bridged the current good days with the older bad ones, Hartley, is a finalist for the Jack Adams Award. His relentless energy and enthusiasm appear to be a great fit for this team going forward. 

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I covered Hartley as an Avalanche beat writer for the Denver Post from 1998 to 2002, and I've never seen anyone before or since in hockey with as much energy. He is always moving, always thinking, always talking and always focused on what's next, not what came before. He has not always been beloved by his players (former Avs enforcer Scott Parker blasted him to the Denver Post for being a "bully" and worse, and others used to call him "Bobby Hartless" in private). In Anaheim in 1999, Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy smashed up Hartley's visiting coach's office with his goalie stick after being taken out of a game that the Avs eventually won. 

But nobody ever said coaches have to be well-liked to be successful, and Hartley's record as a winner is undisputed. He has won a championship at every level he's ever coached, going back to his junior days in Hawkesbury, Ontario. Today, Roy and Hartley are best friends, and Hartley seems to have earned the respect of most everyone around the league for his sheer tenacity.

This is a man, after all, who went to work at age 17 in Hawkesbury factories to support his family after his father died.

As the Flames' Colborne told Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail:

"

From Day 1 of camp, Bob said, "We're a playoff team, I don't care what anyone else says," and we believed that coming out of camp. We just kept overcoming these hurdles, and that's a credit to our coaching staff. In here, he's great at inspiring the confidence—that we're always in the fight and that we have the team in here to do some damage.

"

With Hartley behind the bench, Burke and Co. upstairs in the management suite and players such as Gaudreau and Monahan on the ice, there is light again, finally, from the Flames.