In the summer of 2020, the Calgary Flames headed up to the bubble in Edmonton for the modified NHL post-season. The Flames felt pretty good about themselves, beating the Winnipeg Jets in the qualifying round.
They faced the Dallas Stars in the first round of the playoffs. Matthew Tkachuk suffered a concussion, the Flames were completely off-kilter afterwards, and they lost unceremoniously to Dallas in six games.
A much different Flames club will try to avenge that defeat over the next two weeks.
Anatomy of a loss
With or without Tkachuk, the story of the 2020 Flames playoff run was “Man, they really could’ve won that series.