"It sure can," Mikael Backlund said of the intensity carrying over. "At the end of the day, it's an important game for us and an important game for them as well. That, alone, typically ramps things up. They played well and they want to keep doing that and stay in a Top-3 spot. And for us, every game now is life or death to stay alive here in the race.
"It's a huge, huge game for us."
Certainly, things have felt a bit 'heavy' over the past few days around the 'Dome. The Flames opened this three-game homestand with a 5-2 loss to the Red Wings on Thursday, prompting Backlund and fellow alternate captain Chris Tanev to fall on their swords and "take responsibility" for what they described as a lack of preparation.
And emotion.
"We've been on a rollercoaster all year," Tanev explained. "It's on the leaders in here. That's me. It's my fault."
Backlund did the same in the follow-up scrum - "It's on me," he declared.
It's admirable how some of the team's leaders and top players would speak up in that fashion, but nobody in their right mind could fault those two, in particular, for losing four of their last five games. Everyone has to take ownership, especially with the Flames entering the day two points out of a playoff spot.
It's that same group that will now try to dig themselves out of this funk - and drawing on some of their positive, past experiences is likely a good starting point.
"In the games we play really well, every player has chipped in and played their role," Backlund said, pointing to the Rangers game as one of those galvanizing moments for this team. "I think that's the best way to come together - for everyone to do their part and when we do that, we're really hard to beat. We've beaten some really good teams this year and have played really good games.
"When we do that, we're playing with that emotion, we're playing with that intensity, energy, passion.
"That's what we have to do tonight."
If you need a refresher on what happened the last time these two teams met, here's a brief synopsis:
Rangers defenceman Jacob Trouba single-handedly raised the temperature with a pair of punishing, open-ice hits - the first on Dillon Dube and the second on Nazem Kadri. The now-departed Sammy Blais did the same to Milan Lucic, and thanks to all three, Tanev, Dube and MacKenzie Weegar all earned their first fighting majors of the season.
"It takes courage," Backlund said at the time, praising his teammates for standing up for each other and, in Dube's case, dropping the mitts with one of the NHL's unheralded heavyweights.
But that's what a team does.
"It was a fun game," Backlund said. "Sure, the intensity and the emotion was there, but the pace was really high. There were scoring chances both ways and it was really anybody's game. Obviously, for us, you want to clean up some of those scoring chances against, but at the same time, we created a lot.
"That's definitely something we can carry over and hope to build off tonight."
Forget the past 48 hours. Forget how the Flames have taken barbs and have been the talk of the hockey world for all the wrong seasons.
Despite some of the headlines and off-ice diversions, this group is one of the tightest you'll find in this league - and nights such as the one we enjoyed 12 days ago in the Big Apple are a good reminder of who they are.
And what they can be.
"Whatever happened (on Thursday), leave it behind," Backlund said. "It's a sprint now. I always say, the last 30 games of the season, they fly by - especially when you get less than 20.
"Regardless of how the season has been, we're right there. And if we play like I know we can, we're going to make it."
