SEVENTH HEAVEN

To trot out a careworn, clichéd analogy doesn't begin to do it justice.
This isn't just any old wave.
This is surfing legend Duke Kahanamoku catching a magnificent crest on North Shore Oahu's world-famous Banzai Pipeline and riding it for all its worth.
Seven straight wins.
A sweep of a four-game road swing.
Top line in incandescent form.
Goaltender in a miserly mood.

"When you're rolling, playing like that, you just feel that everything you touch, everything you do, will work,'' sighs assistant general manager Craig Conroy, a day before the Flames reconvene Friday following the legislated five-day break.
"You can't wait to get to the rink.
"The big guys are going. The goalie's great. Dougie (Hamilton)'s scoring. The powerplay. The PK. You're hitting on pretty much all cylinders.
"You've won seven in a row …
"And then we hit the break. Tough timing. If we'd lost four or five going heading into a break like this, you're thinking: 'Yeah. Well. Okay. Let's re-set.' It almost allows you to start fresh.
"But if you're winning …
"As player, when it's going good I know you just want to keep that feeling going. You're in a zone. Your head's in a good spot.
"I wanted to play every other night. Stay in that rhythm.
"Coming back, we're going to play a good team, in the afternoon. Then three games after that and we're back on another break."

The Flames open the pre-All Star Weekend four-game set with the first of three at home, a Saturday 1:00 p.m. MT matinee against the Central Division-leading Winnipeg Jets. That's followed by the yearly east-to-west visit from the Buffalo Sabres, an essential divisional test versus the Kings and then in short order, 24 hours, later a date up north at Rogers Place against the Oilers.
The Flames recent run of form has propelled them into third in the Pacific, the final automatic divisional playoff posting. It ties them for the current longest-running win, with Colorado, and is three shy of the franchise record set twice, most recently Feb. 21 through March 13 of last season.
Calgary's 13 road wins ties them for second with LA, trailing only Tampa Bay's 14.
Over this surge, after an eerily quiet November, the Like A Boss Line of Johnny Gaudreau (2 goals,10 assists), Sean Monahan (5 goals, 6 assists) and Micheal Ferland (4 goals, 5 assists) has run wild, stockpiling 32 collective points.

At 54, Gaudreau is tied for fourth among league point-producers, seven off current pacesetter Nikita Kucherov of the Lightning.
Off to the best start of his young career, the wizarding winger has a legitimate chance to be the franchise's first over-a-point-per-game scoring leader since Jarome Iginla in 2010-11 and, even more significantly, its first century-point man in a quarter century, since Theo Fleury accumulated 100 on the button way back in 1992-93.
Gaudreau also ranks second in assists at 39, trailing Philly's Claude Giroux by one helper.
His rich vein of form has been contagious. Difference-maker Monahan's seven game deciders ties him for tops in that category alongside Tampa's Brayden Point, while Ferland has already left his previous high goal total in the dust and, with 19, is pushing his centreman for the team lead.
On the defensive side of things, goaltender Mike Smith has repelled 193 of 205 shots in posting wins in six of the seven concurrent Ws.
"We've been playing some really good hockey,'' adjudges Conroy.
"We were at a point in our season where we had to put something together, and we did."
And now the trick is to pick up where they left off …