'THEY'VE SET THEIR OWN BAR'

It never gets easier.
In time, they'll sift out the positives, comb through the tape and identify those crucial areas of growth.
But for now, the unmistakable ache remains at the forefront.
"It's good that it hurts at the end because, then, they understand it better," Head Coach Darryl Sutter said Wednesday as he addressed the media at his annual, year-end press conference.
"The next step is the next step."

When training camp opened on Sept. 16, 2021, the Flames had a singular goal in mind: Make the playoffs.
Typically, in those bright-eyed and bushy-tailed days of the campaign, all 32 teams have grander ambitions. The Stanley Cup talk takes over the airwaves and regardless of how the previous year went, some teams truly believe they have as good of a shot as any to take home the prize.

But, as we've come to learn over the past few weeks, especially, a run at Lord Stanley is no small task.
Nor does it happen by accident.
"The only way you can ever become a Stanley Cup champion is to make the playoffs over and over and over and over, and build on that," Sutter said. "And when you say that, that's a four-to-six-year thing, for sure. I've been through that and done it and failed at it.
"Both.
"So, I know.
"The most important part is that your group has to stick together. That 23 to whatever it is for our group - 27, that age group, is the most important part, right? Did those guys show progress? Because they're the guys that the team has either under contract or has rights to. That's what your team's about.
"You can't talk about next year or last year or anything. You do it strictly on that. As a head coach, that's how I look at it - and that's definitely how the organization should look at it."

Both Sutter and General Manager Brad Treliving agree that the 'window' for this group opened in 2019. Back then, they suffered a first-round loss to the Colorado Avalanche, but for that core - with Johnny Gaudreau, Matthew Tkachuk, Elias Lindholm, Andrew Mangiapane and more - that was their first real taste of it.
But all were either at or under the age of 25 at the time.
They've grown up since. They're in the prime of their careers, have elevated their status and are legitimately some of the top players in the game now.
"Bottom line, there's no long-time goals ever reached unless you reach short-term goals and that was a thing as an organization had to be - for sure - reset," Sutter explained. "So, we made progress in that. It's taking that and seeing how we can improve on that.
"It wasn't really about inability or negatives or anything. I break it down through training camp, preseason, parts of regular season, making the playoffs, first round, second round, things like that. I don't really look at the 'end' part. I look at the whole thing and see how, as a team, 'Was there progress?'
"And then break it down as individuals."
It's hard not to look back on those personal success stories and see a team on the cusp. From Gaudreau and Tkachuk, and their electrifying run to the century mark, to the nine other players that set career highs offensively, every day brought a new milestone as the team tore into the franchise record book.
In the end, it goes down as the second-best regular season in Flames history, thanks to their 50-win, 111-point campaign.
They have multiple players up for some major awards, including Elias Lindholm (Selke), Jacob Markstrom (Vezina) and the man of the hour himself, Sutter, as one of three Jack Adams Award finalists for coach of the year.
None of it matters in the grand scheme if you don't win that last game of the season and take a swig from that glistening chalice, but it certainly is a sign of a team taking the right steps to get there.
And all of it has put the Flames back on the map.

"(We met) the standards that are necessary to get some respect back as an organization, as a player back, as a team back, in the league," Sutter said. "When you don't have the elite status, the one or two guys are going to dominate games the way this division has, then you're going to have to do it by committee. That's what I said and that's what we did.
"That group right from, say, Vladar, through the three young defencemen, through six or seven forwards, that's a pretty good group (of young players).
"And they all had outstanding seasons in terms of their growth.
"They've sort of set their own bar now. As coaches and as players now, and as players and families... Make them better.
"That's the key.
"That's what your team's about."