Flames goalie Markstrom parks playoff disappointment, focused on present
Markstrom #Markstrom
Saturday won’t avenge anything.
A win, even a lopsided one, over the arch-enemy Edmonton Oilers would do squat to erase the memories of the Calgary Flames’ ouster in the spring.
This does, however, feel like a particularly important evening for one man — Flames stalwart Jacob Markstrom.
Or not.
“It’s Game 2 of a new season,” he countered.
Markstrom, like it or not, will be one of the major storylines in Saturday’s rivalry renewal at Rogers Place, with the Flames and Oilers — both a spotless 1-0 so far in the 2022-23 campaign — hooking up for the latest instalment of the Battle of Alberta (8 p.m., CBC/Sportsnet, Sportsnet 960 The Fan.)
It’s their first meaningful matchup since May, when Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl & Co. made relatively short work of their southern neighbours in the second round of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs.
One of the NHL’s best defensive teams during the winter months, the Flames suddenly sprung a leak in that series. They surrendered 25 goals during the five-game provincial pasting.
Was that all to blame on their besieged backstop? Absolutely not. But Markstrom didn’t look like the same dude who’d just posted a league-leading nine shutouts and sparkling .922 save percentage, who would eventually be revealed as the Vezina Trophy runner-up. (His save percentage in that long-awaited showdown with the Oilers was a woeful .852.)
“That’s more for reporters and media who dwell in the past,” Markstrom scoffed after Friday’s practice, asked if there has been much locker-room chatter about what went sideways in the spring. “We have a new team and we have new goals set for this season, and that’s what we’re sticking with.
“It doesn’t matter what the other team is doing or who we’re playing. We know what we have to do. Everyone in this room is looking forward and not backwards.”
The only reason to look back is there might be a cautionary tale there, something to learn from.
In the aftermath of that unexpectedly high-scoring series against the Oilers, many wondered if a lightened winter workload might have resulted in more second-round success for the Flames’ masked man. Did he simply run out of gas in that clash of QEII Highway adversaries?
Even if fatigue was a factor, Markstrom would likely never admit it.
“I don’t think that’s the answer,” he said during a training-camp interview with Sportsnet. “But I think it’s an easy answer for people to look at when the outcome is what it is. They say, ‘Look at how many games he played … ’ ”
Indeed, that argument is out there.
Markstrom was tapped for 63 starts and 3,695 minutes of total crease time in 2021-22, new career highs in both categories. He’d twice before eclipsed 60, but his squad missed the playoffs both times.
While backup Dan Vladar was an exhibition standout this fall, Flames coach Darryl Sutter has more than hinted it will be another busy campaign for his star puck-stopper. That shouldn’t surprise anybody. It’s what Sutter expects from his go-to goalie, from any go-to goalie.
“You gotta go look at your first stretch of games,” Sutter said of a home-heavy start, with the Flames returning from Edmonton for eight straight in their own barn. “October is not a busy schedule, when you look at it. You’d prefer to have one or two more games in there, which would affect them. So looking too far down the road, that’s not what you do. Every year, everybody is going to say 60/20 (split) or 55/25. Everybody always does it, right? But at the end of the year, you will see that the 10 top guys are between 55-65. That’s the way it works.
“And it’s not about games played for me, it’s a minute thing.”
The Flames are just 60 minutes into the new season.
The 32-year-old Markstrom was sharp in Thursday’s 5-3 home victory over the defending champion Colorado Avalanche, shaking off an early fluke and finishing with 22 saves. Sutter was pleased, saying afterward: “I thought he was really solid. Made some big saves for us.”
“Obviously a lot of stuff to work on and get better,” Markstrom said, offering his own assessment prior to Friday’s flight to Edmonton. “But two points, that was the only focus I think I had and a bunch of other guys in this room. We wanted the win. That was the main goal and we achieved that, but now we have to move on.”
In this case, moving on to the Oilers. But also moving past that springtime shellacking.
Saturday won’t avenge anything. It may feel like an important evening for Markstrom, but he has been insistent that he’s done glancing in his rearview mirror.
“It’s a sour taste. The Edmonton series wasn’t good,” he said as the opener approached. “But you have to forget about it and move on … You don’t want to have that happen again, but it’s a long road. First of all, you have to take it day-by-day and game-by-game and week-by-week and not get ahead of yourself rather than saying, ‘We have to better at this and that in the playoffs.’
“We have a lot of work ahead of us, and that’s what we have to focus on.”
wgilbertson@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/WesGilbertson