CALGARY Womens Connor Hellebuyck Jersey , Alberta (AP) It was a bittersweet night for rookie center Mark Jankowski.Jankowski scored four times, and the Calgary Flames finished off a disappointing season with a 7-1 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday.”Not the way we wanted it to end, we want to keep on playing, but definitely a building year,” said the 23-year-old Jankowski, who had just three points in his previous 18 games. ”I just take everything I learned this year from all the vets and use that as fuel in the summer to come back into camp and even better player.”Calgary entered the night in an offensive funk, having mustered only nine goals over the previous nine games, eight of them losses. The seven goals was the club’s biggest offensive outburst since a 7-4 victory over St. Louis on Nov. 13.”It’s one of those things. Tonight, for some reason, everything bounced in and I think we could have had even more,” Flames captain Mark Giordano said. ”It’s nice to end it on that note, but it’s been a tough year and obviously a disappointing year.”Before the game, players from both teams and the officials formed a circle at center ice for a moment of silence for the 15 people who lost their lives in the Humboldt Broncos bus accident.”You have those guys, that community, the team, on your mind all day,” Giordano said. ”We’re one big community, the hockey community, there’s a lot of people feeling this one.”Afterward, the Saddledome crowd broke into a chant of ”Broncos! Broncos!””We talked a lot to our guys about the emotion and the purity of the game,” Flames coach Glen Gulutzan said. ”Just think about the young men on that bus Dmitry Kulikov Jersey , who would love to be in the seats that we are. That was their goal and we wanted to play as well as we can to honor that.”Spencer Foo, Garnet Hathaway and Johnny Gaudreau also scored for the Flames (37-35-10), who missed the playoffs for the seventh time in the past nine seasons. A big factor was Calgary’s 17-20-4 home record, its worst mark since 2000-01.Cody Eakin scored for Vegas (51-24-7), which finished first in the Pacific Division and will open the playoffs on home ice against Los Angeles. Vegas is the first modern-era expansion team in any of the four North America pro spots to win its division in its first season.”Right from the start it’s been a fun season,” goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury said. ”It’s fun to be a part of this team and this organization through it all. I’m really proud of the way this team has done throughout the season. Playoffs are fun, intense, exciting. I’m looking forward to getting it going.”Golden Knights veteran James Neal was impressed at how quickly the team gelled after being thrown together at the expansion draft.”What impressed me most about our group is the consistency we played with, the way we rolled four lines, we counted on each player and needed each guy every night and every guy brought their game,” he said.Down 3-0 after the first period, Vegas scored 51 seconds into the second. But the Flames responded with three more unanswered goals before the period ended.Jankowski secured his first NHL hat trick with a short-handed goal at 18:06, bringing over 100 hats raining down onto the ice.He completed the scoring at 1:32 of the third. It was Calgary’s first power-play goal in 14 games, snapping a 0-for-35 skid.Jon Gillies had 26 stops for Calgary. Fleury gave up six goals on 18 shots before being replaced to start the third period. Malcolm Subban had 12 stops in relief.NOTES: Both teams wore Humboldt Broncos decals on their helmet. The Flames also announced they were donating their $84,055 half of the 50/50 prize pot to those affected by Friday’s tragedy.UP NEXTGolden Knights: Face Los Angeles in the first round of the playoffs.Flames: Offseason. CHICAGO (AP) What was left of the United Center crowd was mostly quiet while the final seconds of an era ticked off Tuesday night. There was no big rally for the Chicago Blackhawks. No final charge.It’s over.The NHL playoffs will go on without Chicago for the first time in a decade after the Blackhawks were eliminated from contention with a 5-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. Injuries, aging stars and inexperience combined to sink Chicago after a wildly successful run that included three Stanley Cup titles.”It’s been a tough, tough stretch here,” coach Joel Quenneville said.Quenneville was coaching Colorado the last time Chicago missed the playoffs. The former NHL defenseman and the Avalanche decided to part ways after the team was swept by Detroit in the second round of the 2008 postseason, and he replaced Denis Savard after the Blackhawks fired the Hall of Famer four games into the following season.What followed was the most successful decade in franchise history. Led by a core group of stars that included Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith, Chicago won three Stanley Cups and reached the conference finals two more times while appearing in the playoffs for nine straight seasons.But it looks as if age and an annual dance with the salary cap might have finally caught up to the Blackhawks (30-35-9) Youth Dustin Byfuglien Jersey , who are last in the Central Division with eight games left on their schedule.”We’ve had some terrific players and some really good teams, real good depth,” Quenneville said. ”We didn’t always have good starts to the season, but had a lot of options to work with as a staff. The building was rocking and we’re good at home, and we’re successful on the road, real consistent.”This has been the one year we’ve been unpredictable in our game, and our possession game has been the one area that we’ve nailed. This year, we didn’t get to that level we needed to get to.”An injury to two-time All-Star goaltender Corey Crawford also contributed to Chicago’s rapid decline. The 33-year-old Crawford hasn’t played since Dec. 23 due to an upper-body injury, and it has been a steep drop-off to backups Anton Forsberg, Jean-Francois Berube and Jeff Glass.The Blackhawks also have been without top forward Marian Hossa all season due to severe side effects from medication to treat a progressive skin disorder. It’s unclear if he will ever play again.”You’re always going to have key injuries,” Quenneville said. ”Always going to have significant injuries, have some things go against you. But we’ve always been able to overcome them and find ways rectify some tough situations and get back on track. This year we’ve been unable to do it.”Chicago still might have been able to make a playoff run if not for its other issues. Toews, Keith and key defenseman Brent Seabrook are showing signs of age after years of long playoff runs and international play. The Blackhawks’ young defensemen have experienced some growing pains, and Brandon Saad has struggled in his return to Chicago after an offseason trade with Columbus.But the Blackhawks just got a closer look at a possible roadmap for a return to contention.The Avalanche are in prime position to return to the playoffs after going 22-56-4 last season. Top goaltender Semyon Varlamov is healthy again after playing in just 24 games a year ago. Mikko Rantanen has developed into an offensive presence at age 21, and rookie Alexander Kerfoot scored twice against Chicago to get to 17 goals on the season.”There’s a great example in the team we played today, and in how far out you can be, and how quickly you can recapture that winning attitude and that feeling and get right back in the race,” Quenneville said after the Blackhawks’ sixth loss in seven games.”The playoff picture’s probably completely different than a lot of people anticipated. That’s how close teams are when they begin a year, and things can go right from goaltending to special teams to top players. There’s a number of ways where you can make a difference and new young players are certainly a part of that equation.”—Jay Cohen can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jcohenap—