CALGARY — “This,” Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau said, “is the biggest game I’ve ever played.”
It isn’t often you get that quote in April, so we asked Gaudreau which were his previous examples.
“Probably either the (NCAA) National Championship game (in 2012), or the (2013) World Junior final,” he said.
How did he do in those two games? “Won ‘em both,” Gaudreau said. “Hopefully we win this one as well.”
Watch it live tonight on Sportsnet at 9 p.m. ET
Los Angeles at Calgary. It’s all here tonight, folks. A Flames win and the defending Stanley Cup champions are eliminated, putting Calgary into the playoffs for the first time since 2009.
The town, as the old cliché goes, is on fire. You don’t want to be the lacrosse team in town, or even the junior Hitmen. Sports radio is a one-horse deal right now: Flames, Flames, and more Flames.
“I don’t expect anything less than this place is going to go crazy,” said Calgary coach Bob Hartley, referring to the Saddledome tonight. “Major electricity in the building. Let’s get on the ice. Let’s play.”
It’s poetic justice that the champs stand in the way of the National Hockey League’s most unlikely story of 2014-15, and their playoff berth. It wouldn’t be as much fun if it were Minnesota or St. Louis, and it wouldn’t be as daunting a task either.
“If we would have listened to a lot of your predictions, we could have spent the winter in Punta Cana,” Hartley told the media. “We did it our way … and now we are (one win away) from the big dance.”
Here’s the scenario: A Winnipeg win in Colorado tonight clinches the second wildcard spot for the Jets, which leaves Calgary and Los Angeles fighting for third place in the Pacific Division. If Calgary wins, the Kings are finished. But, if the Kings and Jets win, it is highly likely that Winnipeg will ice a depleted lineup for Saturday’s season finale against Calgary, where a Flames win would then clinch third place.
So it looks doubly bad for Los Angeles. But if the Kings don’t win in Calgary tonight, nothing else will matter.
The Kings won two Game 7s en route to their second Stanley Cup in three seasons last spring. But really, can you compare Game 81 of the regular season to a Game 7 in the playoffs?
“If we lose we’re going home, so yes,” said Drew Doughty. “This is a Game 7 for us, we’re treating it that way. We’re completely dialed in, completely ready to play this game. It just comes down to who wants it more, and I know how badly our team wants it.”
Often the home teams feels the nerves in a game of this magnitude, more than the road team. In this town, it feels like the playoffs have already started — even before the Flames have officially qualified. That Flames team that no one expected any success from back in November is long gone.
This playoff berth has become Calgary’s to lose.
On the other bench, even though the Kings aren’t in a good spot there is that sense of having played and won this game a few times in recent seasons — something Calgary cannot say.
“Just being there before helps,” Doughty said. “We have a lot of guys in this room who, when those games come up, they rise to the occasion. I know those guys will play their best hockey and when we have our top guys playing their best hockey everyone else just follows.”
