Flames vow to keep foot on the gas heading into series against Stars

The Calgary Flames were in a similar position not that long ago. Heading into the NHL playoffs armed with a high seed after a stellar regular season, the post-season flop of 2019 was a lesson learned for 2022.

"Looking back at the 18-19 year, we had guys sitting, we had guys resting for playoffs," Flames winger Johnny Gaudreau recalled. "We were first in the Western Conference and we just kind of took our foot off the gas. We can't do that this year.

"A lot of guys on our team this year were part of that team and we kind of learned from that."

The Flames (50-21-11) open a best-of-seven first-round series against the Dallas Stars (46-30-6) on Tuesday at the Saddledome.

Dallas beat Calgary in six games in the first round of Edmonton's 2020 playoff bubble in the last post-season meeting between the two clubs. The Stars eventually fell to the Tampa Bay Lightning in six game in the Stanley Cup final.

Dallas earned the Western Conference's first wild-card berth vaulting over the Nashville Predators with a 4-2 win over Anaheim to cap their regular season.

A playoff berth locked in with two weeks left in the regular season and first in the Pacific Division secured with four games to go, Calgary accrued more points this season (111) than it did in 2019 (107) when it topped the conference.

Led by one-man-wrecking-crew Nathan MacKinnon, an Avs team on the gallop just to get into the playoffs ousted the Flames in five games in the first round three years ago.

The 2022 Flames feature almost a dozen players who can recall that sting. That includes current 40-goal scorers Gaudreau, Matthew Tkachuk and Elias Lindholm.

That memory makes them better equipped this time around to carry their regular-season form into the playoffs, according