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The Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks – two teams with identical records and faint playoff hopes – will be forced to wait to face off after two Canucks players and a Vancouver coaching staff member entered the National Hockey League’s COVID-19 protocol Wednesday.

Several hours after both the Flames and Canucks had their morning skates, word came out from the league on Wednesday evening – less than two hours before puck drop in Vancouver – that their matchup would be postponed. 

The NHL will have an update on Thursday. On Tuesday, Canucks forward Adam Gaudette was pulled off the ice during practice after testing positive and added to the protocol list.

The Canucks and Flames have both fallen short of expectations this season in the North Division, stumbling to the same 16-18-3 record two-thirds of the way through the 2020-21 season.

For the Flames, playing Wednesday evening would have been the last opportunity for starting goalie Jacob Markstrom to salvage a substandard month. In March, he compiled a 4-6-1 record with a 3.02 goals-against average and .890 save percentage.

On Tuesday, the 31-year-old goalie slammed his stick in frustration at the end of practice after allowing a shootout goal.

“It’s my job to keep the puck out of the net, and I’m not doing that to the level where I want,” he said afterwards. “You want to win the goalie battle against the other goalie, and I’m not doing that. That’s really frustrating.”

Early on under Darryl Sutter, it’s clear that the veteran coach’s habit of riding his starting goalies hasn’t gone away.

Since the two-time Stanley Cup winner was hired in early March, Markstrom has started eight of 11 games, with David Rittich mostly getting action on the second half of back-to-backs.

Markstrom’s rough stretch even prompted Sutter to go against a tenant of his coaching philosophy – yanking a starting goalie.

Sutter despises the notion of pulling his goalie from a game.

It’s a belief he’s ascribed to for much of his 1,296-game coaching career that has spanned four decades.

“Not for one shift, second, minute, anything,” Sutter said after a Flames loss on March 17 where Markstrom allowed seven goals on 30 shots against the Edmonton Oilers.

“I’m on-record for this. Every team I’ve ever coached: I do not pull the goalie. I hate pulling the goalie, it’s like benching somebody and I do not believe (in) that. I believe they stick with their teammates and fight their way out of it just like everyone else.”

Less than two weeks later and with the Flames in a tailspin, that quote rings all the more significant. After allowing four goals on 23 shots versus the Winnipeg Jets on Monday, Markstrom was pulled after the second period – a move clearly at odds with Sutter’s stated philosophy.

Since Miikka Kiprusoff retired in 2013, it’s been a steady diet of the likes of Cam Talbot, Reto Berra, Joni Ortio, and Niklas Backstrom (among several others) between the pipes for Flames fans … stopgaps that the organization hoped would turn into long-term solutions, but never ultimately did.

And surely the Flames organization didn’t anticipate facing those familiar questions again so soon after inking Markstrom to a six-year, $36 million pact – the richest contract the team has ever given a goalie – this past off-season. They also standardized their approach to the position, unveiling a goaltending department led by former pro Jordan Sigalet and bringing in ex-NHLer Jason LaBarbera to work with both Markstrom and Rittich.

Early on, the commitment to the pivotal position paid dividends: In January, Markstrom was 11th among 64 NHL goalies in save percentage (.929) and 16th in goals-against average (2.18), and through the first four weeks of the season he had logged more minutes than all but two goalies (fellow North Division netminders Frederik Andersen and Mikko Koskinen).

Since coming out of his crease to charge Canucks forward Tanner Pearson in a race for the puck on Feb. 17 (and subsequently being placed on the injured reserve), however, Markstrom’s play has faltered.

After returning, he’s 4-6-1 while allowing over three goals per game and stopping less than 90 per cent of shots. This year, he’s allowed more than three goals seven times in 26 starts and rarely stolen a game for a team that will effectively be in must-win games through the end of the pandemic-shortened 56-game season.

For his part, Markstrom emphatically shrugged off the notion that the collision with his ex-teammate turned his season in the wrong direction, and Sutter has stood by his starting goalie.

“I’ve coached a lot of really good goalies,” Sutter said. “(Markstrom) has the ability to reach that level of those guys if he sticks with it and works his way through it.”

Markstrom has proven to be capable of that in the recent past. Between 2017-18 and 2019-20, among the 36 goalies with at least 100 starts he was 16th in save percentage (0.914) and 18th in GAA (2.74) while playing more than just six other goalies in the league. He also finished fourth in Vezina voting last season.

“The urge to play better, I would say, is very high,” Markstrom said prior to Tuesday’s flight to Vancouver. “I obviously try to push myself in practice but, at the end of the day, you have to get the work done in the games and I’m not happy with my performance.”

Markstrom is surely relieved that the month of March is over, but there’s no time to dwell on the past as the Flames play their first game of April Friday night against the surging Oilers in Edmonton.