Flames goalie Dustin Wolf has once again put his Western Conference foes on notice, revealing that he has a chip on his shoulder and wants to make the playoffs.
Dustin Wolf and the Calgary Flames enter the new season with unfinished business after narrowly missing the playoffs last year.
The 24-year-old goalie dazzled in his first full-time season in the NHL, appearing in 53 games and finishing at 29-16-8, a 2.64 goals-against average, a .910 save percentage, and three shutouts.
Despite Dustin Wolf’s brilliance, Calgary (41-27-14) narrowly missed the playoffs, losing the final wild-card spot to the St. Louis Blues on a tiebreaker.
Now, Wolf informs us he’s returning with a chip on his shoulder, intent on driving the Flames past the hump.
‘I think this is a common topic with everyone right now is, how you follow up last year? We got beat out by a tiebreaker,’ Wolf said. ‘As an individual and as a whole group, we have a lot to prove, and we have guys with some fire in their guts right now.’
‘Our job with the same team we had last year is to run it back, keep showing everybody, whether you have the most skill, the least skill, are the oldest team, the youngest team, it doesn’t matter as long as we come together as a group we’re destined for good things, especially this year,’ Wolf said. ‘Coming into camp last year, we had the full expectations to make playoffs. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for us; it was more the talking heads in the media saying they don’t think we’re going to make it.
‘You never want to miss out and I was comparing it to like being one win away from the Cup. You’re right there and you feel like you deserve better, but you look back, there were certainly some games that slipped and that’s the long 82-game season. But it’s neat you get to learn from the experience. That was my first real opportunity to do that, so you try to learn from it now and you take full advantage of it in years to come.’