Instant Reaction: Flames bounce back, conquer the Kraken

46 seconds into the resulting power play, the Flames opened the scoring. Matt Coronato entered the offensive zone and shovelled the puck to Joel Farabee. Farabee threw a pass to a rushing Morgan Frost who skated in and wristed the puck past Philipp Grubauer to give the Flames a 1-0 lead.

Midway through the period, Mackie Samoskevich made a nice pass to give Freddy Gaudreau a clean shooting lane. Dustin Wolf made the first stop, but Gaudreau jammed in his own rebound to tie the game at 1-1.

Martin Pospisil nearly gave the Flames a lead a few minutes into the second period, but the officials had already blown down the play and so the apparent goal was ruled null and void.

But a little after that, the Flames scored three successive goals to grab hold of the game.

A Yegor Sharangovich forecheck induced a turnover by a Seattle defender to Frost. Frost passed to a rushing Aydar Suniev, who fired the puck past a sprawling Grubauer to give the Flames a 2-1 lead.

Just shy of three minutes later, the Flames drew a power play. Matvei Gridin attempted to throw a back-door pass to Coronato… but the puck glanced off Ryker Evans’ skate and into the Kraken net to make it 3-1 Flames.

A little later, the Flames scored again. Coronato induced a Kraken turnover, allowing Mikael Backlund to carry the puck into the offensive zone and passed to a streaking Farabee, who fired the puck past Grubauer to make it 4-1 Flames.

Late in the second period, the Kraken got one back on the power play, with Samoskevich getting a pass in the slot from Kaapo Kakko and firing it past Wolf to cut Calgary’s lead to 4-2.

But the Flames added some insurance early in the third period. Zach Whitecloud intercepted an errant Kraken pass in the neutral zone and sent Coronato into the Seattle zone. He beat Joey Daccord from the high slot to make it 5-2 Flames.

Ryan Strome added another goal with 1:46 left in regulation to make it 6-2.

Why the Flames won

To be blunt: the Flames were better than Seattle across the board. They out-scored the Kraken at five-on-five. They out-scored them on special teams. They managed the puck better. They buried more of their chances.

This was the type of game the Flames needed after how the night went against Edmonton.

Red Warrior

Matt Coronato had four points and was generally very, very good.

Turning point

The Flames rattling off three consecutive goals in the second period allowed them to build some swagger and completely take over the game.

Flames lineup

The Flames looked like this against Seattle:

Joel Farabee – Mikael Backlund [C] – Matt Coronato
Matvei Gridin – Martin Pospisil – Ryan Strome [A]
Yegor Sharangovich – Morgan Frost – Aydar Suniev
Brennan Othmann – Jonathan Castagna – Adam Klapka

Kevin Bahl – Simon Nemec
Jake Middleton – Zach Whitecloud [A]
Yan Kuznetsov – Zayne Parekh

Dustin Wolf started in net, backed up by Arsenii Sergeev. The healthy extras were Joel Hanley and William Strömgren. Jonathan Huberdeau, Sam Honzek, Devin Cooley and Brennan Othmann.

The Flames swapped Nemec and Parekh in the second period.

This and that

Matt Coronato’s four point game was the first by a Flame since Jonathan Huberdeau had four points in a game early in the 2024-25 season.

After Burner

Join Mike Gould and Kent Wilson right after the game for After Burner!

Up next

The Flames (6-7-0) are headed on the road. They visit the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night.