Calgary Flames fans have held their breath, hoping for good news.
Ever since Connor Zary needed help leaving the ice following a knee-on-knee hit from Anaheim Ducks defenceman Drew Helleson on Tuesday night, the Flames and their fans have been waiting for news about the extent of the damage.
If Zary is out long-term, the first thought is obviously about the player and hoping he gets healthy soon and has a straightforward recovery. He’s 23 years old and has a bright future ahead of him, and that’s true whether he requires an extended stretch on the sidelines or got lucky and can return to the ice soon.
The diagnosis will, undoubtedly, have an impact on the organization’s plans for the rest of the season, though. It would have to.
Nobody thought the Flames were going to be where they are on Thursday morning, one point out of a playoff spot. It’s a credit to the coaching staff and everyone in the locker room that they’ve managed to surpass every expectation that was placed on them externally this year and have scraped and clawed to stay in contention.
You don’t just abandon that. Too much good, honest, hard work has been done. Guys have bought in and have grinded out results.
But it does raise the question: Where do the Flames go from here?
Long-term, we know they’re building through the draft while trying to stay competitive and avoid allowing a culture of losing to set in. They aren’t tanking. They aren’t rebuilding.
This season, though? What do you do?
The Flames risk losing their first-round draft pick if it lands outside the top 10 as a result of former GM Brad Treliving’s decision to include a pick in the deal that sent Sean Monahan to the Montreal Canadiens. There are certainly some who would like to see the Flames start losing games to ensure they land in the top 10.
But that seems antithetical to everything the Flames have aimed to accomplish this year. They aren’t going to start trying to intentionally lose games. It’s not happening.
Are they good enough to stay in the playoff race without Zary, though? That’s probably the real question.
In only his second year, Zary has emerged as one of the Flames’ most important offensive players. He’s on the power-play and after a slow start production-wise — there were never any complaints about the way he was playing, the puck just wasn’t going in early in the year — he’s now third in goals scored on the Flames roster, with 10 lamp-lighters.
And the Flames need those goals. Only four teams in the entire NHL have scored fewer than the 108 goals the Flames have managed this year, and none of them are especially close to the playoff race.
That the Flames have managed to stay competitive through tight defensive play is a credit to the group, and they’ve gotten some great goaltending. But the reality is, you do need to score goals to win hockey games and there have been moments where they’ve been hard to come by.
Losing Anthony Mantha to a season-ending knee injury early in the year didn’t help. Losing Zary for any length of time would be worse.
Could other guys step up? Of course. Yegor Sharangovich has been looking lively lately and came awfully close to scoring a few times against the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night. He’s due.
Maybe Andrei Kuzmenko can finally bust out of his slump, and Matt Coronato seems to be getting better every single game and has found his scoring touch, with nine goals.
So there’s hope that the Flames could survive for a little while without Zary, although it won’t be easy.
The question is whether there will be a temptation to replace his production in the trade market.
We know GM Craig Conroy has been shopping for a young centre, and maybe that search intensifies. A Zary injury wouldn’t change that much.
Dealing away prized draft picks for veteran help doesn’t make sense, though. The draft is the path back to the promised land of true Stanley Cup contention.
The Flames have been surprising people all year. Whatever the diagnosis on Zary’s injury, they’ve got to stay the course. It’s the best, and most obvious, path forward.