The Flames’ best fights of 2024-25: Martin Pospíšil sticks up for Joel Hanley

Originally posted on Flamesnation | By Ryley Delaney | Last updated Jul 17, 2025 2:00 PM ET

Of the 23 fights the Calgary Flames had during the 2024-25 regular season, three of them were in the same game.

On a Friday afternoon in late November, a game between the Flames and the Columbus Blue Jackets got chippy. The first fight, coming toward the end of the second period, was the fifth-best Flames fight this regular season.

The first fight, which doesn’t rank on their top five list, came early in the second period. Jonathan Huberdeau forced a neutral zone turnover and passed it to a rushing Andrei Kuzmenko for a one-on-one opportunity. Jake Christiansen laid out Kuzmenko with a clean open-ice hit.

Perhaps it was because the Flames were down 2-0 at this point, but Martin Pospíšil jumped in and easily won the fight, with 77% of 30 voters giving it to the Flames’ forward on HockeyFights.com.

Later in that period, now in a 3-0 game, Mathieu Olivier boarded Joel Hanley, with Pospíšil challenging the Blue Jackets’ forward to a fight. Olivier, a much tougher opponent than Christiansen, got the upper hand on Pospíšil, punching him when he was off balance.

Pospíšil finally got a chance to unload as Brayden Pachal held Olivier back as the linesmen stepped in, but it was a pretty clear win for Olivier, as 90% of 39 HockeyFights.com voters gave the fight to the Blue Jackets’ forward. This was the fifth-highest rated fight for the Flames during the 2024-25 regular season, earning a 5.41/10.

There was another fight in this period involving Olivier, but we’ll cover that later in the countdown.

All in all, despite a 5-2 loss, this was one of the more entertaining games early in the Flames’ season. This was the Flames’ third consecutive loss to kick off a four-game road trip. They followed it up with a 6-2 loss against the Pittsburgh Penguins on the second game of a back-to-back. When they returned home, they hosted the Blue Jackets, getting their revenge in a 3-0 victory.

It was a tough couple of weeks for the Flames, as from the start of their road trip in Ottawa (a game I went to) until Dec. 19, the Flames were 3-5-4.

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

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