The Flames looked more like themselves in shootout loss to the Jets

The Calgary Flames were not particularly good on Wednesday night when they faced the Vancouver Canucks.

They allowed eight goals, scored just one (and that play was fairly off-side), never led, and generally seemed completely discombobulated. In short: they really didn’t look like the team that scraped and clawed their way to within a tiebreaker of the final Stanley Cup playoff berth back in April.

So while the Flames didn’t get the result they hoped for in their 5-4 shootout loss on Friday evening against the Winnipeg Jets, they sure as heck looked a lot more like the Flames we all expected to see this fall.

“Well, it’s nice to see four goals on the scoreboard,” snarked goaltender Dustin Wolf when speaking to the media following the game.

The Flames received a pair of goals from Nazem Kadri – off really nice set-up passes from Adam Klapka and Kevin Bahl – and singles from Matvei Gridin and Joel Hanley. And while the Flames did let a 4-2 lead after 40 minutes slip away, they were a lot better across the board than they were against the Canucks and were able to work on a lot of different game situations.

“I would say it was nice because our team was better than what we were the prior game,” said head coach Ryan Huska. “We weren’t very good the night before or two nights ago. So there was a lot more that we liked about today’s game. I feel you can actually teach on it and build on some of the things that we saw today. So it leaves me feeling better about where we’re at heading into the season.”

With Jonathan Huberdeau and Martin Pospisil not in the lineup after leaving Wednesday’s game with injuries, Friday night allowed one more opportunity for 2024 first-round pick Matvei Gridin to audition for NHL employment. While fellow 2024 pick Zayne Parekh has been all-but-penned into the Flames’ lineup due to a stellar body of work in the Ontario Hockey League, Gridin’s emergence during this fall’s camp has been much more of a surprise.

While Gridin’s usage did become a bit variable as special teams took chunks of the game, he ended up scoring a goal on the NHL’s reigning Hart and Vezina Trophy winner, Connor Hellebuyck, with a slick backhand between his pads.