After a rotten game, like for example this latest one, Calgary Flames core piece MacKenzie Weegar will allow himself to stew until the end of the evening.
But no longer than that.
“I know that when I get home, Mags will probably ask, ‘That was a tough one, eh?’ So I’ll have to talk about it again,” Weegar said, referring to his bride-to-be Maggie. “I’ll even watch the highlights on SportsCentre and just see my mistakes and say, ‘#$@&, that was brutal.’
“And then I’ll shut it off and head up to bed, and then it’s done.”
If you happened to catch the … errr … highlights of Thursday’s 8-3 thumping from the Tampa Bay Lightning, you would have also seen clips from Weegar’s post-game media scrum, when the alternate captain and workhorse rearguard seemed to suggest that he had been the Flames’ biggest problem. That was a stretch.
While Weegar is admittedly hard on himself, and while he cringed when he checked a stat-sheet that showed a minus-3 rating and four giveaways, he had plenty of company in the coulda-been-a-lot-better club.
“That’s MacKenzie,” said Flames head coach Ryan Huska when asked about Weegar’s scathing assessment of his own performance against the Lightning. “He’s never, ever been a finger-pointer in any situation. Even when it’s not his fault, he will be a guy who will say it’s his fault. That’s why he is such a good team player and he’s such a great guy to have around our room. I feel like he’s a real asset for our leadership group to have as someone who is committed to doing things the right way.
“It was most definitely not all at his feet, for sure, but that’s just MacKenzie’s character.”
Weegar won’t lack motivation for Saturday’s clash with the Florida Panthers.
It is, after all, his former team on the other side.
They are, after all, the reigning Stanley Cup champions.
On top of it all, it will be a milestone night as the 30-year-old suits up for his 500th career contest. His count so far includes 306 appearances with the Panthers and 193 more in the Flaming C.
“For me, it’s easy (to reset),” Weegar said after Friday’s practice at the Saddledome, when he was skating with Joel Hanley rather than his usual partner Daniil Miromanov. “I’ve had games like that before. I don’t think it’s going to be my last time having a game like that. That’s just how it can go sometimes. For me, it’s about my response. My attitude today shows a lot, I think.
“When I was younger, especially when you were on the bubble trying to make it and you’d have a game like that, that’s when it was hard. You were nervous, thought you were going to get sent down. Now, I think it’s that same sort of mentality. You have to treat it the same way, come out even harder and respond well. It shows a lot of character, how you respond, especially against a big club like this.
“There is no better way to respond than getting the champs.”
That was the consensus around the Flames’ locker-room Friday.
This hardly seems like ideal timing for a date with a top contender, but the locals view it as an opportunity to prove they’re much better than they showed in Thursday’s shellacking from the Lightning, that they’re not starting to slip despite losing seven of their past nine (2-5-2).
“We talk a lot about response,” Huska said. “It’s not reacting, you respond to events. We have done a good job of that so far so I’m not anticipating anything different tomorrow night.”
There will be extra attention Saturday on Matthew Tkachuk, Jonathan Huberdeau and Weegar, three names forever linked thanks to that blockbuster trade between the Flames and Panthers in the summer of 2022.
Tkachuk returns to his old stomping grounds for the first time since hoisting the Stanley Cup and then famously saying in the celebrations: “Shoutout to my fans in Calgary, you know I couldn’t let Edmonton win.”
Huberdeau tops the Flames’ team scoring charts and is currently on an offensive tear, with nine points during a six-game streak.
Weegar, meanwhile, is as important a player as there is on the Saddledome payroll. He’ll want to make sure the highlights are a little easier to watch Saturday.
“These are the nights you want to play,” Huska stressed as the Flames prepped for the Panthers. “You get them one time in our building. They’re a very good team. There’s a lot of guys on that team that know each other both ways, so it always makes for a fun night.”