Punctuating their most unlikely comeback of the season, Dan Vladar gave a stirring explanation for how it has all been possible.
“Belief, belief, belief is all we’ve got,” the Calgary Flames netminder told reporters after backstopping his team to a shocking 3-2 shootout victory in Denver.
“We might not have the strongest team on paper, but I think we have the strongest team deep inside our heart.”
“So proud of this group, how we responded in the third period.
“We’ve been showing this the whole season that we can stand up for each other and we are like one big family here. Then we get these results, I think it’s because of that — everybody plays with their heart.”
Those hearts came within a dozen minutes of being shattered, as their playoff lives essentially hung in the balance of a game the host Avalanche dominated for almost 50 minutes.
Enter a quartet of the most unlikely heroes since Ghostbusters:
Ryan Lomberg, Adam Klapka, Yegor Sharangovich and Vladar.
Lomberg’s first in 41 games cut the Avs’ 2-0 lead in half with 12 minutes left, before Klapka buried a Lomberg pass 32 seconds later to tie it up.
From there, Vladar held the fort with a handful of huge saves that got the team to a shootout ended by, of all people, Sharangovich.
Yes, the same Sharangovich whose season-long struggles found him being replaced regularly in the third period by Klapka, who used his six-foot-eight, 235-pound frame to crash the net and start the comeback.
Without the big rookie, and the energy of his fourth line, the Flames go quietly into the night, lose their third in a row and are all but mathematically eliminated from their unlikely playoff race.
Instead, the team boarded a post-game plane to Utah with a bounce in their step, and two shocking points that allowed the lads to climb within five of St. Louis and six of Minnesota with two games in hand on each.
They just won’t quit.
“We’ve kind of been doing it all year,” said Lomberg, whose club has posted comebacks in each of their last five wins.
“We know what we’re capable of, and if we play the right way, we can play with anybody.
“I’m proud of our line. It’s great to contribute offensively. It’s been a little while. Huge win for us.”
On a night in which Colorado’s speed stifled Calgary’s offence throughout the first two periods, coach Ryan Huska deserved plenty of credit for seizing the fourth line’s energy and using it down the stretch.
