It’s a week that hockey fans have a love-hate relationship with: bye-week. Let’s check out the Calgary Flames while they have these days off.
The moment every hockey fan dreads: Five days with no game from their favourite team. But sometimes it can be good, especially if your team hasn’t been doing well and needs some sort of a reset. This is the opposite case for the Calgary Flames.
Heading into the bye-week, they’re on a season-high seven-game win streak, the longest active win streak in the NHL, and one of two teams that remain undefeated in 2018. Last year, they won four of five before their bye-week and had a 5-0 blowout loss to the Arizona Coyotes when they returned. And playing one of the Western Conference’s best when they return on Saturday, the Winnipeg Jets, this could be an interesting game.
However, the Flames are still in a good spot in the standings. Two weeks and one day ago, the Flames were 11 points back from the LA Kings. Now, the Kings have lost five in a row and are one point back from the Flames with the same amount of games played. The Flames are in the third Pacific Division spot and are tied with the San Jose Sharks with 54 points, but the Sharks have one game on hand.
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The next Pacific Division team behind the Kings are the Anaheim Ducks, who have 51 points in 46 games. Going on a five-day break can be stressful, especially if teams within the same division are still playing. But after this, the Flames are still in a good spot.
So, let’s have a virtual roundtable discussion about the Calgary Flames during this bye-week. I asked some questions to the other writers here at Flame for Thought. Let’s virtually discuss them.