There is a saying Calgary Flames general manager Brad Treliving will trot out periodically that encapsulates day-to-day life in the NHL. According to Treliving, there are only two states of mind: Winning and misery.



Most times, most years, there’s been considerably more misery than winning in Calgary. Happily, this season has been an exception thus far. For only the third time in the past ten seasons, the Flames earned a spot in the NHL playoffs. Only once in that span – in the spring of 2015 – did they win even a single playoff round. That year, they finished third in the Pacific and upset the second-place Vancouver Canucks, before getting routed in the second round by the Anaheim Ducks.



As an underdog, the Flames made it to the 2004 Stanley Cup final but lost in seven games to the Tampa Bay Lightning. But you have to go all the way back to the early 1990s to find a Flames’ team that has been this competitive in the regular season. The past...