Disappointed Flames come up short in bid for playoffs

Despite coming from behind to win yet again on Tuesday night, the red-hot Calgary Flames have been eliminated from playoff contention.

Calgary's thrilling 5-4 shootout victory over the Vegas Golden Knights was not good enough as their fate was sealed earlier in the evening when both the Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues won to lock down the two wild-card playoff berths in the Western Conference.

Four weeks ago, the Flames were two points out of a playoff spot, but had two games in hand on St. Louis. Calgary has gone 10-2-3 since then, but failed to make up any ground as the Blues compiled an 11-2-1 record to maintain that two-point cushion.

"Felt like we've been rolling, playing some good hockey, just unfortunately, we couldn't get any help," said Nazem Kadri, who scored his 33rd goal, setting a career high.

While Calgary has one game remaining, St. Louis owns the tiebreaker so that lead is enough to leave the Flames on the outside of the post-season.

"I'm disappointed, a little bit sad for our players," said Flames coach Ryan Huska. "They worked hard over the course of year to get themselves to this spot and I felt like they probably deserved better than where they ended up.

"You have to give a lot of credit to St Louis, too. Not a lot of teams go on the run that they went on to get themselves into the playoffs. If they wouldn't have had that type of run, we're probably where we want to be right now."

Five of Calgary's 10 wins in their furious late-season push came in games in which they trailed after two periods.

"Character guys, good group of guys," said Kadri. "We could have been out of this thing a month ago, but it shows (our) pesky attitude. And I felt if we could have squeaked in, there might have been something