The Flames, who locked up the Pacific crown with a 4-2 win over the Dallas Stars Thursday, have another four games - including tonight - before hitting the dancefloor. While the Canucks enter the night fighting for their playoff lives, the Flames have little else to play for.
They've been one of the most consistent groups in the NHL this year. They're a Top-3 possession team and generate scoring chances at a higher rate than anyone in the West, boast two, 100-point players and three, 35-goal scorers for the first time since 1996.
Add a Vezina-calibre goaltender in Jacob Markstrom, the aforementioned Hart and Selke efforts of Johnny Gaudreau and Elias Lindholm, and the Jack Adams frontrunner in Sutter himself, and that's a pretty strong mix entering the 16-team bracket.
The key, between now and then, is simple:
Just keep it up.
At 48-20-10, the Flames are the class of their division. They - and their fans - are deserving of a night like this.
From having no one in the stands last year, to the COVID-caused, on-again/off-again sashay around the holidays, to a packed house now …
The players are eagerly awaiting what the crowd has in store.
"It's fun," said Oliver Kylington, who will make his playoff debut this spring. "You're feeling the buzz around the city. Obviously, our fans have been great and I'm looking forward to seeing that C of Red for the playoff time. We want to give them a good show and be a really good team out there, so we're going to keep pushing and preparing ourselves for what's coming."
Fellow defenceman Nikita Zadorov was on the opposite side in 2019, when the Flames last hosted playoff games at the 'Dome. His Colorado Avalanche won that series in five, dispatching the favoured Flames with four straight victories after the locals took Game 1.
He still remembers the pulsating volume that all 19,289 pumped up.
"It was pretty crazy," he recalled. "I remember the anthem - they sing the Canadian anthem here, right? It's pretty cool. It gives me goosebumps all the time."
Back then, the blueliner explains, the Flames were an easier team to play against.
Not so, this time around.
"We play the right way," Zadorov said. "I'll give you an example. Look at our top scorer, John (Gaudreau). He's our hardest-working guy defensively as well. He back-checks, he tracks, he checks, he forechecks, he gets the puck back, he battles.
"He gets his legs going. He gets our team going.
"Every guy is buying into the system and buying into our identity of how we play the whole year and we've been consistent. That's why we are where we are.
"I don't want to jinx too much and say too many things, too, but we're super excited and we're super ready for the playoff hockey.
"Definitely."
