Watching the Islanders-Oilers duke it out during my formative years in the late 1970’s-early 1980’s set the bar pretty high. Being in Calgary during the Flames surprise magical run to game seven of the Stanley Cup final in 2004 was unreal. 2015 was amazing.
But I don’t know if I’ve ever enjoyed watching hockey more than I have this year – the Calgary Flames are currently the second best team in the entire 31-team NHL (!), as one of the highest scoring teams in the NHL, they are currently winning in every kind of game – close ones, blow-outs, last minute victories, comebacks.
They played two early games this weekend back to back on Saturday and Sunday this weekend and won them both – 2-1 over the Minnesota Wild and then 7-2 over the St. Louis Blues today. That makes them 8-2 in their last 10 games and 22-10-2 on the season.
They have all sorts of amazing stats – second most shorthanded goals, more five goal periods than the rest of the NHL combined, five players with 30+ points which is more than any other team (I think), etc. etc. etc.
Johnny Gaudreau by himself is worth the price of admission every single game – such a dynamic wizard of a player.
David Rittich started the year as a backup and is appearing to be a legitimate Top 5 goalie in the league.
Tons of guys from the farm team have been called up and fit right in.
Seriously, beyond high-priced free agent signing James Neal not scoring (he’s hit 20-goals per season in every year as a pro before now and has only 3 goals with the season nearly half over) and maybe a couple other quibbles, this is just pure joy.
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