It will be known as the Great Goal Drought.
The Calgary Flames will go goalless in their first game. And this will then extend into their second, and third, and fourth.....
Nothing is quite working. Shots for are typically between 20 and 30, but nothing is going in. A record number of posts, crossbars, and disallowed goals like the league has never seen will be recorded.
Monahan goes on LTIR just for ####s and giggles. Gaudreau at first passes every puck he ever has in the offensive zone, then flips the script and shoots from everywhere, including from behind his own net. Then he quits hockey due to a lucrative opportunity selling shoes in a mall shoe store. Lindholm breaks a minimum of three stick a game in frustration after the first ten games when every shot fails.
And on it goes.
Game 40, game 50, game 60. No goals.
Strangely, due to Sutter's focus on excellent defense, and Markstrom's elite play, they're not out of the playoff race. A large number of loser points in 1-0 games that went to OT and shootouts, and shootout wins after a 0-0 score in regulation (those goals don't count as 'goals' of course for the purposes of stats in the NHL) keeps them barely in the hunt.
Until game 82.
It's 0-0 with ten seconds left in the third period. Winnipeg needs a win in regulation to make the playoffs. So they pull the goalie with a faceoff in the Flames zone.
Sutter has been playing Tanev as his first line centre for some time now in frustration, so he lines up in the left faceoff dot with Scheifele. Tanev wins the draw and it goes cleanly back to Markstrom.
Markstrom draws it back, and shoots it down the ice towards the empty net. Not a great shot, it clears the zone above the heads of the Jets D, then bounces and floats its way across centre and into the Jets' zone rolling in an arc from the boards towards the net.
The Jets D are chasing it, of course, but mere inches before they can get there, the puck rolls into the empty net.
Markstrom scores. The Flames first goal of the 2021-22 season, in game 82.
This game, of course, as we all know allowed them to squeak into the playoffs. Then with Gaudreau coming out of retirement after being fired from the shoe-store, and Monahan finally healing from whatever eyelash injury he was suffering from, the team goes on a tear and cleans up. Winning the Stanley Cup and the scoring record for goals for in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Not a single overtime game, each game won by a minimum of 3 goals, it was the shortest playoffs in history.
And your 2021-22 Stanley Cup winners are the Calgary Flames.
Last edited by Zamboniman; 10-16-2021 at 02:18 PM.
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