The Calgary Flames, playing in front of a home audience on Friday night, may have seen their chances of staying competitive in their second round 2015 Stanley Cup NHL playoffs series come to a crashing halt. Calgary entered game four down 2-1 to the Anaheim Ducks and, in all likelihood, the Flames needed to pull even in the series in game four in order to have a realistic chance to upset the Ducks. However the Flames went down on Friday, falling to Anaheim 4-2.
The scorers for Calgary were Sean Monahan and Micheal Ferland, two players that both scored in the first period. Scorers for Anaheim were Jakob Silfverberg, Andrew Cogliano, Matt Beleskey, and Patrick Maroon.
Calgary now face the daunting task of having to come back in a series down 3-1. Furthermore, the Flames, the road-team in the series, will need to win two games in Anaheim on top of game six, one which would come from Calgary if needed. Complicating the situation for Calgary even worse is the fact that the Flames have not won even just one game in ages from the Honda Center.
Game five, which definitely threatens to be a close-out game, will go later this weekend from Anaheim (10pm ET on Sunday). Game six, if needed will come on Tuesday in cowtown with a time yet to be announced. However hockey fans interested in the Calgary/Anaheim affair may soon be paying attention to other series.
In other action on Friday night, the Washington Capitals, losing 2-1 in overtime, failed to close out the New York Rangers. Game six of that series will go on Sunday, a few hours before the Calgary game (ie. 7pm ET). Washington appear to be under significant pressure in the game as game six will represent their only opportunity to advance on home ice. They have won both of their home games already against New York, so perhaps the Caps will ground some confidence in that.
The only other series active features Montreal and Tampa Bay. They will meet on Saturday night at 7pm from Montreal with the Habs down 1-3 but perhaps holding a bit of momentum as they seemed to put things together in game four.
At present, the complexion of the two conference finals appear to be Tampa Bay vs. Washington in the east and Anaheim vs. Chicago in the west.