4
CALGARY — There has always been a discussion, here in the province of Alberta, about where the rooting interest lies if one of its NHL teams but not the other qualifies for the playoffs.
Do Calgary Flames fans throw their support behind the Edmonton Oilers, if they're on their way to an unexpected trip to the Stanley Cup finals, as happened in 2006?
Do Oilers' fans suddenly adopt the Flames if it happens in reverse — which it did in 2004, when Calgary made it to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup final?
The answer is never conclusive and probably mixed — some do, some don't. The one constant, since the Flames joined the Oilers in Alberta for the start of the 1980-81 season, is that somewhere along the line, fans usually had to make that call.
This year? Maybe not.
As the 2007-08 regular season enters its final week, both the Flames and Oilers find themselves in danger of missing the post-season, Calgary despite having been in a playoff position for much of the season, Edmonton despite an unexpected and entertaining 11th-hour run.
Apart from the suddenly surging Minnesota Wild, the Oilers may be playing the best hockey of any team in the Northwest Division. Their biggest enemy is the schedule — only two games remaining, with the possibility of earning a maximum of 90 points for the season. With Calgary, the Vancouver Canucks and the Nashville Predators all ahead of them in the standings, and holding games in hand, the Oilers need two wins plus some help from a couple of Central Division also-rans to sneak down the middle and earn either the seventh or eighth seed in the Western Conference.
Technically, the Flames are still in control of their own destiny, despite a weekend in which they were the only one of the top 11 teams not to earn at least one point (two overtime and two shootout decisions on Sunday will do that to a fading team).
Minnesota did itself the most good, winning against Colorado in overtime to open up a four-point lead on the Avalanche, a result that all but guarantees the Wild first place in the division and home-ice advantage in the opening round.
Altogether, five teams have now clinched playoff spots in the West and if Minnesota looks as if it's the most vulnerable first-round opponent among the teams that figure to start at home, it is only because the alternatives are a) Anaheim, the defending Stanley Cup champions, locked in as the No. 4 seed; b) San Jose, the hottest team in the NHL, with a 17-0-2 record in the past 19, the probable No. 2 seed; and c) Detroit, the soon-to-be-crowned President's Trophy winners, looming as the top seed.
After Minnesota, the Canucks helped themselves the most this weekend, snapping a four-game losing streak by burying the Flames and moving to within two points of seventh-place Calgary in the conference standings.
The victory clinched the season-series between the two clubs for Vancouver, which could be significant, given that it is the second tie-breaker after overall wins in determining playoff positioning. The Canucks finish the season with three more home games, including a return date with the Flames this coming Saturday which could well determine the final playoff berth.
In effect, the Canucks — who trail the Flames by two points at the moment — have essentially caught them in the standings. If the gap remains at two points going into that final night, Vancouver can leapfrog the Flames with a win in regulation, because the tie-breaker will go in their favour.
The wild card in the equation is the Predators, who technically remain outside the playoff picture at the moment, with 87 points, one behind Vancouver. However, the Predators play three games this week, all against Central Division opponents that are either out already (the St. Louis Blues twice, in a home-and-home series) or will be by the time their game rolls around (in Chicago, on Friday, against the Blackhawks).
Nashville seems to have gotten its goaltending straightened out these past few games. Dan Ellis, the nominal back-up from Orangeville, Ont., who signed with them as a free agent last summer after seven years in the Dallas organization, had a 233-minute shutout streak end in overtime against the Red Wings Sunday. The Predators will finish their 82-game schedule by Friday already; and have a chance to run the table this week.
If they earn the maximum six points and get to 93 points, then it becomes increasingly likely that only one of the three Western Canadian teams on the playoff bubble will make it in.
The Flames may get Daymond Langkow back tonight after he was excused from the Vancouver game following a death in the family; Craig Conroy, who played only three shifts against the Canucks, is iffy.
Without their two top centres, the Flames were unable to mount any sort of fore-checking pressure whatsoever, giving the Canucks easy egress from their own zone. Calgary looked fragile emotionally and thin in terms of their overall talent up front - and now need to regroup in a hurry for what amounts to a must-win game against their provincial rivals, the Oilers, on Tuesday night.
One more instalment of the Battle Of Alberta, with everything on the line. In these parts, in the aftermath of the Flames' and Oilers' long-ago glory days, it doesn't get much better than that.
