Heading into the meat of tonight’s game in Los Angeles, things did not look great for the Calgary Flames. Down 3-0 to the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Flames seemed set for their ninth straight loss. To that point, the Flames had been out-played and largely out-classed by the Kings.

Then Johnny Gaudreau happened.

The Calgary Flames won 4-3 in overtime in a game that turned on the play of a 21-year-old rookie. Johnny Gaudreau saved Christmas.

Here’s how it happened.

The Flames got down in the third period. The Kings out-shot them, out-chanced them and scored twice. Uh-oh. Trevor Lewis’ shot from the far, far side eluded Jonas Hiller to make it 1-0 Kings just two minutes into the game. Late in the period, the Kings struck again via a Marian Gaborik power-play marker with David Jones in the box.

Things weren’t much better in the second, as Jamie McBain scored early in the period on the power-play with Lance Bouma in the box. Spirits were low in FlamesNation, and were perked up only slightly by a Johnny Gaudreau power-play goal late in the period. The Kings largely carried play, and it was thought it might be too little, too late for the Flames.

The third was largely even, until Johnny Gaudreau decided that the Flames had lost enough games. With the goalie pulled and just over two minutes left, Gaudreau beat Jonathan Quick for his second goal of the game to creep the Flames to a 3-2 deficit. But he wasn’t done. About 1:13 later, Gaudreau chucked the puck at the net…and it bonked in off of the body of Drew Doughty. Kings fans wept. Flames fans rejoyced. The game was tied. Gaudreau completed his first professional hat trick.

We went to overtime. Gaudreau very nearly had his fourth marker of the contest, but was robbed by Jonathan Quick. However, Flames captain Mark Giordano scored on a rush a few minutes later to complete the comeback and give the visitors a thrilling 4-3 victory.

Well, the team got out-played for half the game and – outside of the first goal – Jonas Hiller did his level best to keep the game close for the visitors. Then Gaudreau flipped his switch and turned it on. They got bounces. They got chances. They got two late goals and an OT marker, and skated away with their seventh third period comeback.

Johnny Gaudreau. Nobody was even in the same stratosphere.

The Calgary Flames take a 18-15-3 record into the four-day Christmas break. To be honest, regardless of how streaky the team’s been, I’m pretty damn impressed by a club in Year Two of a rebuild being this decent so early. And this club is driven by the play of youngsters like Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan and T.J. Brodie, and key vets like Mark Giordano and Jiri Hudler.

The Flames are back in action on Saturday night and do it in style – with a Hockey Night in Canada late-game clash with the Edmonton Oilers. The puck drops at 8pm.

Merry Christmas, everybody!