1. Pitt Stop
The Flames landed in Pittsburgh Friday afternoon, a day on from digesting a second consecutive defeat on this five-game road swing.
It’s been a trip with heavy travel, tight turnarounds, and Saturday, the team will play its fourth game in less than six days, with an unconventional start time to boot.
Hockey players are creatures of habit, routine-oriented, and Saturday’s 3:30 p.m. local time start is certainly not habitual.
It comes at a time, too, when the intensity around the League has ratcheted up a notch, as the NHL’s 32 clubs start to navigate the ‘back nine’ of the regular season.
Connor Zary had the Flames’ lone marker Thursday in Boston – his seventh of the season – and he admitted post-game Thursday that the trip has been a grind, adding for his side’s success is predicated on consistent hard work, right from the drop of the puck.
“I think it’s tough when you’re trying to grind out a back-to-back like that (in Montreal and Boston), and you’re trying to get points, and you’re trying to win games anytime of the year,” he said. “Especially games like this, when you get into the second half.
“I think just trying to find a better solution, a better way to come out and go right from the start.”
But perhaps that unfamiliar game day routine offers no choice but to focus on the task at hand. The players will show up to PPG Paints Arena much earlier than usual, and the daily schedule dictates the team will land in its next stop – Columbus – right around the time the Hockey Night in Canada late game gets underway.
A handful of players skated Friday afternoon after landing in Pittsburgh but for most, the next time they’ll lace up their skates will be in advance of pre-game warmup Saturday afternoon.
Nothing to it but to do it.
And after this busy start to the trip – and the results of the previous two stops – you get the sense that a gritty effort, and a positive result, might be just what this group needs.