BY MARK SPECTOR
sportsnet.ca

CALGARY — The game wasn’t just their season. As it turns out, it was a metaphor for the Calgary Flames’ season as well.

The Flames offence hardly did enough for the first 40 minutes Tuesday night against San Jose, and Calgary found that a late flurry wasn’t enough in a 2-1 win for the Sharks.

About a half hour later, when Colorado’s Matt Duchesne fired home the game-winning goal in a shootout at Vancouver, the Flames were mathematically eliminated from the post-season, and the Avalanche were in.

Calgary misses the playoffs for the first time in six seasons.

"Duchesne scores. They win. It’s over," said Craig Conroy in a sullen and mostly vacated Flames dressing room, which did not open to the media until after the Avalanche-Canucks game had concluded. "We were hoping for a miracle. It just didn’t happen."

If there was any passion left in this Calgary club — if they truly believed that a playoff spot was out there, somewhere, for the taking — it was indiscernible for most of the evening Tuesday.

Through 40 minutes Calgary outshot San Jose 24-22, but the five toughest saves of the night had been made by Miikka Kiprusoff in the Flames’ net. On the pair of goals he allowed in the opening 40 minutes, by Rob Blake and Jamie McGinn, Kiprusoff had little or no chance of making the saves.

If not for a resurgent year in the nets by Kiprusoff, who posted his best goals against average and save percentage in four seasons, Calgary would have been eliminated long before this.

"We didn’t find ways to win games (this season). We found ways to lose games," Conroy said. "Miikka, he deserved to win, and we didn’t help him. It just wasn’t a good year overall."

Rene Bourque directed in a power play goal 4:20 into the third period, his 26th of the season. But though the Flames pressed, all they had in them was a single goal Tuesday, as the same pop-gun offence that will finish near the bottom of the league in scoring led to their demise in the final meaningful game of the 2009-10 season.

The Flames will rue the fact they have won only four of their past nine games down the stretch, but Calgary sealed its fate much earlier this year with indifferent play on home ice, where their record sits at a pedestrian 20-17-3.

It marks only the second time since the Flames and Oilers have been in the NHL together that both Alberta teams will miss out on the post-season. The other year was 2002.

Flames captain Jarome Iginla once again failed to score, extending his goalless streak to nine games. He has just one goal in his last 14 games.

"A very disappointing end," winger David Moss said. "Every guy in here feels the same way."