Thumbs up to Flames, down to 'guarantees' As TSN's Dave Hodge writes, thumbs up to a Calgary Flames team that exceeded expectations by a Red Mile and thumbs down to categorizing every player's prediction of a win as a 'guarantee' and a 'Mark Messier moment.'

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That's it for the Calgary Flames, so now we can say - one more time - thumbs up to the team that exceeded expectations by a Red Mile.

Try to find a pre-season prediction that had the Flames making the playoffs and staying in them for 11 games. Whatever the schedule was for the building of a winner in Calgary, the Flames are way ahead of it.

They have established themselves as a team whose effort is second to none. Coach Bob Hartley gets more praise now than when his Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in 2001. Because of Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan and Sam Bennett, to name just three of the team's exciting young stars, it's easy to say that the future is bright in Calgary.

That's the way the script reads today, after the Flames were eliminated by Anaheim on Corey Perry's overtime goal. But it should be realized that the players aren't interested in reading it quite yet. They didn't get as far as they did without believing they could keep winning. For those who watch the Flames, the Stanley Cup is an attainable goal a few years from now.

For those who play for the Flames, it was this season's goal and it was not reached. Sure, there should be a similar opportunity next year, but Sunday night in Anaheim, next year didn't matter in the Calgary dressing room. Because next year can be just as unpredictable as this year was, and not necessarily as successful.

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Every time a player sounds confident about his team's chances and expresses it by predicting a win, it's called a 'guarantee' and a 'Mark Messier moment.' Can we please say thumbs down to that?

Alex Ovechkin did what he's supposed to do as captain of the Washington Capitals by saying they would win the series against the Rangers and he looked forward to meeting Montreal or Tampa Bay.

Was he wrong to look ahead? Surely it beats looking back on the missed opportunity of Game 5 in New York. If the Capitals don't advance, they will be haunted by the third period clock that read 1:41 to play when Chris Kreider kept the Rangers' season alive.

Ovechkin points out that Washington has played well enough to win and too well to lose, and he's responsible for dwelling on the bright side of the Caps' current situation. As he should, without being pressed to guarantee a win, and without being Mark Messier.