ANAHEIM — Flames coach Bob Hartley took time to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to “all the hockey Moms out there” on Sunday morning, but he must have forgotten to wish Ryan Getzlaf a happy 30th birthday as well.
That was about it for the pleasantries, as Hartley’s Flames stare down the end of a memorable season, in a building where they have not won a hockey game since 2006. That’s 24 losses in a row for Calgary, if anyone is counting.
“Elvis is dead, The Beatles have split and life goes on,” Hartley began after Sunday’s optional morning skate for the Flames. “If we didn’t believe that we could win we would have stayed home. The day that I will coach a game in this league that I believe our team or our organization can’t win, I will stay home.”
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Down 3-1 in this series, a veteran head coach like Hartley knows to keep the focus pretty narrow for his players.
“We can’t win three games tonight,” he said. “We just used a very simple word in our team meeting this morning. It’s just, ‘Win.’ We can only go back to Calgary to force a Game 6 by winning tonight. That’s all that’s on our plate.”
His players get it. There’s no talk of winning a series in Calgary’s room, or even much chatter about the end result tonight. It is only about playing well enough to give that result a chance to be in Calgary’s favour.
“Tonight we’re going to do whatever we can to leave this building without any regrets or excuses. Hopefully we can get the result we want,” said Sean Monahan, whose playoff beard is so sparse, he might need eight rounds of playoffs for it to ever fill in. “Mistakes are going to happen, but we’ll be a desperate team. We’re going to be that team that take charge and try and do more.”
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The End is Near
Inevitably, every series comes down to this point where expediency meets resiliency, with one team (Anaheim) looking to get a few days off before the next round, and another (Calgary) looking to put its summer vacation off for two more days at least.
“Whenever you have this opportunity you want to take the opportunity,” began the aptly-named Ducks defenceman Cam Fowler, “because as beautiful a city as Calgary is, you want to try and avoid those extra games. You know the type of team you’re dealing with, and any sort of light they have, any confidence they can gain, that’s pretty dangerous.”
Look at Montreal. The Habs have gone from an unraveled state post-Game 2, to a bunch of pit bulls with a serious bite on their series with Tampa. Everyone knows what the Saddledome would be like on Tuesday night should this series return to Alberta.
“This time of year, teams are fighting for their lives. That’s when you see the true characteristics of a team,” he said. “You want to try and take care of things when the opportunity is there.”
“I can guarantee you one thing,” promised Ducks head coach Bruce Boudreau, “I have not looked ahead. One thing I know is that Chicago won the last series. We’re focused on this series. When this is over one way or another then we might have the opportunity to look ahead. I’ve found in the past that when you start looking ahead then you forget about what’s going on in the right nows. So we don’t do that.”
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UFA du Jour
One of the intriguing unrestricted free agents on this summer’s market will be Ducks second-line left-winger Matt Beleskey. He has a goal in every game of this series, had a career year this season with 22 goals, and only Alex Ovechkin and Max Pacioretty notched more game-wining goals than Beleskey’s eight this season.
It’s a classic case of preparedness meeting opportunity for this soon-to-be-27-year-old from Windsor, Ont. The Ducks acquired centre Ryan Kesler from Vancouver, and Beleskey has been his winger for most of the year.
“This is a big contract year, a team that has Stanley Cup hopes… It is just about being confident, and then it comes down to opportunity,” he said. “I’ve had tons of opportunity on the powerplay with Kesler. He works extremely hard to create loose pucks and forecheck. I owe a lot of my success to his hard work this year.”
Beleskey has never had more than 11 goals as a pro, but had 41 in his final year of junior at Belleville.
“I’ve always been a shooter,” he said. “When I was young, that’s all I did: shoot pucks on the driveway. My parents had a little trouble with the garage doors.”