[TheRealPepman]

https://torontosun.com/sports/hockey...at-stanley-cup

TRAIKOS: Incredibly, Flames are Canada's best chance at Stanley Cup
by Michael Traikos (mtraikos@postmedia.com; twitter.com/Michael_Traikos)

SAN JOSE — Even now, with the team sitting comfortably in first place in the Western Conference and one of its players in the conversation for the Hart Trophy and another for the Norris Trophy, the Calgary Flames might not be the biggest hockey story coming out of Canada.

Heck, with the daily drama coming out of Edmonton, they might not even be the biggest story in Alberta.

As Connor McDavid would tell you, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“Hopefully we’re overlooked,” Flames GM Brad Treliving said in a phone interview. “We’re just the little guys down here in Calgary. There’s lots more interesting things to talk about. We’ll just try to fly under the radar here.”

Well, maybe not overlooked. But under-appreciated, for sure. Few saw this coming after Calgary missed the playoffs last year thanks to a nasty stretch where the team lost 17 of its final 24 games.

Coming into this season, if you had polled the hockey fans on which Canadian team might finally end the country’s drought, half would have said the Jets and the other half the Maple Leafs.

The Flames, meanwhile, were lumped in with the Oilers and the Canadiens in that second tier of teams. After a summer where Calgary had fired its head coach, traded Dougie Hamilton and Micheal Ferland, and then overpaid for free agent James Neal, there were too many unknowns.

This much was clear: no one was predicting a Stanley Cup. Few were even sure this team would make the playoffs...