'Bring Our Best Every Night'

OTTAWA - So, Rasmus Andersson, you’re leading the team in ice time per outing this season, you’re leading the team in scoring …

“Keep going …,” interjected Andersson with a smile and laugh following the team’s morning skate at the Canadian Tire Centre.

Coming off a four-game sweep of their recent homestand which improved their record to a 12-6-3, including a tidy 9-3-0 mark on Scotiabank Saddledome ice, the Flames are a confident bunch.

And for good reason.

Hard work, tenacity and a ‘never-say-die’ attitude has been their hallmark this season.

Now, they embark on a four-game roadie that begins tonight in the Nation’s Capital, where they will look to carry over that momentum and build on a 3-3-3 away record so far this campaign.

“I mean, you just got to bring that good feeling from home on the road,” said Andersson, whose team is 6-2-2 in their last 10. “I thought it was a pretty loose group this morning.

“You know, we try to have fun out there and when you have a tight group, a close group, and you work hard for each other, everything is easier and I think we just have to bring that little mentality on the road.”

Four straight wins in your barn is not an easy feat, especially when you faced some top-tier teams as the Flames did - it's a real shot in the arm.

“It does a lot, right?” said Andersson. “Take care of home ice, build confidence playing against some really good teams. So it’s a lot of confidence and now we just have to keep it up and bring it on the road.”

“The hard thing is to keep it up, do it over and over again” he added. “And we got a really good test here tonight against, in my opinion, a good team.”

And adding some more Ws in the Away Record stat line is something Andersson said the team is focused on.

“To be a good playoff team – or even get into the playoffs – you need a good road record,” he said. “We definitely have areas of improvement on the road … we just need to trust our process and play to our strengths.”

That process and those strengths allowed the team to bend, but not break after a stellar start that had them 5-0-1, before a string of four losses, then some back-and-forth before the recent run of victories.

They've experienced some adversity already, some highs and lows, which can help steel a team's resolve.

“We started off hot and then lost a few in a row and then got hot again," said Andersson. "I think when you win four in a row, you just can’t give them back, right? And we did that with the first one so we have to avoid doing that again.”

U.S. Thanksgiving is coming up this week and it is, to many, a marker of sorts to an NHL team’s playoff hopes. If you’re in by that date, the odds are heavily in your favour to actually advance to the post-season when all is said and done.

While it will be talked about by media and pundits at length his week, Andersson said he and the team aren’t focused on that.

“No, not really,” he explained. “I mean you obviously always want to get off to a good start. Whether it’s American Thanksgiving or not, that doesn’t really matter. You just want to get off to a hot start and we managed to do that and now the tricky thing is to keep it going.

“A lot of teams are going to bring their best when they play us now, so we have to bring our best every night.”

He was asked what he attributes the team’s success to so far.

“Just we’re working hard,” he explained. “And we’re trying to have the same mindset against all the teams we play against.

“When we play at our best we’re a really hard-working team and we’re tight defensiely and, yeah, we’re in those close games and it feels like we’re in those every night.”

When it comes to Andersson’s aforementioned play this season, his 24:55 of ice a night is tops and he’s contributing at both ends of the ice, his 13 points tops in the room as well.

He scored the shootout winner in Saturday in Calgary's 4-3 victory over the Wild.

“It’s nice, you always want to contribute,” he explained. “You know, the team itself is off to a good start and it feels good personally, so all you can do is just keep going.”

It was joked maybe a team scoring title is in store this campaign?

“I’m not there yet,” he said with another grin. “Let’s wait a little bit with that one. We got a lot of skilled players here (who are) going to get their feet under them and get some more goals for us.”