Flames defender Kevin Bahl left Thursday’s game after taking a puck to the head

Originally posted on Flamesnation | By Ryan Pike | Last updated Oct 10, 2025 8:00 AM ET

The Calgary Flames ended up losing Thursday night’s game against the Vancouver Canucks by a 5-1 score.

But a bigger loss could be blueliner Kevin Bahl, who departed the game early in the third period after being struck in the head by a puck. To add insult to injury, the Canucks scored the eventual game-winner off the same sequence that Bahl was injured on.

Everything unfolded just shy of three minutes into the second period. The Canucks had finished off a penalty kill, with Filip Chytil exiting the penalty box and jumping into the play after sitting for two minutes. The Flames had their power play group on the ice and had made a partial change, but they were defending a Canucks counter-attack.

Chytil’s initial wrist shot changed directions after hitting Matvei Gridin’s leg and went wide of the Flames’ net, striking Bahl in the head from behind. Bahl went down in a heap and the puck bounced right back to Chytil. As several players on the ice raised their arms to alert the officials that Bahl was hurt – including but not limited to Rasmus Andersson, Connor Zary and even Vancouver’s Drew O’Connor – Chytil fired the puck into the Flames net.

Brutal luck for the Flames. The puck goes off the back of Kevin Bahl's head and right on to the stick of Filip Chytil who scores.

2-0 Canucks

: Sportsnet | #Flames pic.twitter.com/67QLVZ6v6N

— Robert Munnich (@RingOfFireCGY) October 10, 2025

Bahl was down for awhile before skating off on his own power, but he did not return to the game. In Bahl’s absence the Flames’ defensive pairings went into a blender for the rest of the game and the Flames gave up three more goals, losing 5-1. Flames head coach Ryan Huska had no updates on Bahl after the game.

The Flames are off on Friday, then play a matinee home game on Saturday against the St. Louis Blues. The extra defenders in the first two games were Daniil Miromanov and Zayne Parekh, so it seems likely that at least one of them will slot in against the Blues. That said, Bahl is a left shot and a fixture in the top four, while Miromanov and Parekh are both right shots, so if Bahl is unavailable for Saturday we’ll likely see some significant alterations to the existing defensive pairings.

We’ll have updates on Bahl as they become available.

This article first appeared on Flamesnation and was syndicated with permission.

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