New York. The Calgary Flames refuse to give up.
They showed it emphatically with a 5-1 win over similarly desperate Ottawa last night.
“We know exactly the situation we’re in, but we’re determined to fight for every point,” top scorer Rasmus Andersson tells Sportbladet.
The season is, by and large, a miscalculation of the flames. They saw themselves as a top team before the series began last fall, but they’ve been guilty of several lackluster performances and also had some bad luck, and with a month left in the regular season, find themselves sorely out of line in the Western Conference.
There are indisputable qualities in the crew, however, it was evident last night, for example, when they rallied for perhaps the best team performance of the winter and beat Ottawa – themselves chasing the stretch in the East – by a score of 5-1.
nbra has been running for 60 minutes
– Above all, it was good that the attack worked well and we got a little bit of profit, says Skåne backklippan Rasmus Anderssson on the phone from his hometown in Alberta.
– But we played well overall and did it for 60 minutes.
Rasmus himself was involved in most of the things, as is so often the case, and was responsible for two points – among others in the form of a neat goal into a numerical disadvantage midway through the first period.
– First of all, Mikael Backlund hit one unbelievable fit in this post. He continues: It was really just a thank you and an acceptance.
Five points from the wild card spot
Elias Lindholm also scored a goal and also played up to one goal, while the aforementioned Backlund was credited with two assists.
Despite the victory, the Flames are still five points ahead of their last wild card – and three games have been played more than two teams have to get past.
We know exactly what situation we’re in, but we’re clearly not giving up. We intend to fight for every point until the end, Anderson says.