Heart-and-soul leader Nazem Kadri looked like he’d just cried his eyes out. Ditto for captain Mikael Backlund.

After their playoff hopes were extinguished in game 81, neither was in the mood to talk to media in their locker room about moral victories for a club few pegged to be relevant in mid-April. Calgary won 5-4 in a shootout over Vegas, but failed to get help on the out-of-town scoreboard. St. Louis and Minnesota each took care of their own business and will play beyond this week.

“It’s cool,” Kadri replied when asked if he was proud they exceeded expectations so profoundly.

“But you know how I feel about that.”

He then gave a rueful chuckle.

“At the end of the day, it’s a privilege to play playoff hockey,” Kadri continued.

“We want to play playoff hockey and that’s the goal.”

Backlund summed it up with three words.

“Disappointing. Sad. Upset."

Kadri felt like they could have made noise and surprised even more people had they pulled it off.

“If we could have squeaked in, there might have been something there because we’ve had a lot of........

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