Backlund declares Flames are "far from where we're starting to doubt ourselves"
The Calgary Flames have dropped five straight contests and, as a result, have slid further down the Pacific Division and Western Conference wild card standings.
And, despite an up-and-down delivery to the pre-Christmas schedule for the Saddledome dwellers, things aren’t slipping away from the Flames.
To hear them tell it, anyway.
“No, it’s not getting away from us,” five-year alternate captain Mikael Backlund declared after the club’s latest setback, a disappointing 5-2 effort Friday to a St. Louis Blues team playing the second of back-to-back games.
“We know we can still do a really good thing here. But we’ve got to pull together here and be a lot better. Execution wasn’t good enough tonight. Secondary efforts, digging in to score. Never gave up, gave up some goals. But we haven’t given up here. We know we’re chasing it, for sure. We’re behind in the standings.
“We know we got to play better, win more games, and we’re going to do it.”
"We got to pull it together here."
Mikael Backlund speaks with the media after the loss to the Blues. pic.twitter.com/UoPdMVGs5r
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) December 17, 2022
The standings paint a rough outlook for a team that won a Pacific Division title a season ago and, though churning over a quarter of their roster and two-thirds of a top-line, entered with similar lofty expectations.
The team is fifth in the Pacific Division, three points back of the Edmonton Oilers and Seattle Kraken and five back of the Los Angeles Kings.
Back of the Oilers and Colorado Avalanche in the wild card chase.
That’s the situation — bad news through 31 games played.
The good news is 51 games remain.
“We’ve all gotta just look at ourselves in the mirror and be better,” fellow leadership member Elias Lindholm admitted postgame.
“It’s not there right now. There’s pucks around there, laying around there, but you’re not putting in that extra effort to get to the net and to beat their man one on one and stuff like that.”
"The whole game was very sloppy from our side."
Elias Lindholm reflects on tonight's game vs. St. Louis. pic.twitter.com/mcMw0Xo5mf
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) December 17, 2022
The latest string of losses hasn’t been the worst of it this season, though.
Calgary has also been tagged with a seven-game losing streak this season.
The sum of the slumps is 12 setbacks, to a team that’s sustained 18 — a dozen in regulation and another six in extra time.
“We have a good team here, but we’ve got to show it too,” Backlund said. “We’re far from where we’re starting to doubt ourselves. We know we can win games.
“But, at the same time, we know we’re a team that’s going to win by keeping it low, not giving up goals. We know we’ll be (in) tight scoring and once in a while we get a big win. But, we know that we’ve got to play with a tight checking game, we’ve got to get back to that.”
Four twirls remain before the Flames break for Christmas.
All four come against Pacific foes, and all four offer an opportunity to right the recent wrongs — at least on some level — to ease a bit of tension this holiday season.
Because the solution, at least in the short term, is going to have to come internally.
“Divisional games…they’re always hard-fought, tight games,” Backlund said. “We got to go in with the mindset here that we need a really, really big road trip here. Set ourselves up to be in a playoff spot before Christmas. That’s our goal going into this road trip. We know we can better, we know we have to be better.”
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