The preseason is often full of strange hockey games. On Tuesday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome, the Calgary Flames hosted a San Jose Sharks club that was light on established National Hockey League players. Despite this, those fledgling Sharks pushed the Flames to the limit in a wild 7-5 Flames victory.

The Flames started this game off slowly, being out-shot handily early on. They finally got some offensive zone time, but Michael Stone’s point shots were blocked and that allowed Joakim Ryan to spring Barclay Goodrow on a breakaway. He beat Rittich to make it 1-0.

71 seconds later, with Matthew Tkachuk in the penalty box, Rourke Chartier beat Rittich five-hole with a quick shot from the slot to make it 2-0. It was just seven seconds into the Sharks power play.

The Flames managed to answer back to make it 2-1 on a nifty bit of passing from Brett Kulak, who found Johnny Gaudreau all by his lonesome at the side of the net for a nice deflection play.

But eight seconds later, before they had a chance to announce Gaudreau’s goal, Lukas Radil drove the Flames net and beat Rittich high to make it 3-1. A Marcus Sorensen goal was disallowed after a mad scramble in the Flames crease due to goaltender interference – even after a strangely long preseason video review – but Maxim Letunov drove the net 10 seconds after the disallowed goal and beat Rittich to make it 4-1. Shots were 12-9 Sharks, chances were 8-8.

The middle frame had all sorts of goals. The Flames scored first off a dump-in by their fourth line. Glenn Gawdin and Curtis Lazar went to retrieve the puck, while Matthew Phillips went to the net and got a tap-in off a very nice tape-to-tape pass from Lazar to make it 4-2.

A few minutes later a Sharks player over-skated the puck in the neutral zone, so Sean Monahan calmly collected the puck, sped up and fired the puck past Aaron Dell to make it 4-3.

The Flames tied things up at the end of a lengthy offensive zone shift that began with the Phillips line establishing control. Tkachuk redirected a Dalton Prout point shot to make it 4-4.

But the Sharks got the lead back a little bit later, as Timo Meier drove the net and was stopped, but Sasha Chmelevski picked up the scraps to put the Sharks back on top 5-4. But the Flames got that one back with 10 seconds left in the period. After a dump-in was collected, Gaudreau faked out Antoine Bibeau from behind the net and beat him with a wrap-around to tie things up at 5-5.

Shots were 13-12 Sharks, scoring chances were 14-10 Flames.

The Flames went up in the middle of the third period on a bit of a weird play. Oliver Kylington evaded some Sharks defenders just inside the blueline, then found Sam Bennett by the faceoff circle. Bennett spun and fired and his wobbling shot beat Bibeau to make it a 6-5 game.

Czarnik added an empty-netter (by diving to beat out a Sharks defender) to make it a 7-5 final. Shots were 9-4 Flames and scoring chances were 4-0 for the home side.

The Flames got down early because of some leaky defensive zone play and some challenges burying their chances. They tidied things up defensively and suddenly the game began to swing their way.

Looking at the rosters alone, the Flames should’ve had a talent edge. They played like they had that edge for the last two periods after getting a scare from a very flat start.

Gaudreau was easily the most engaged veteran offensively and he was progressively more tuned-in as the game went on. Beyond him, there were some nice performances from Rasmus Andersson, Noah Hanifin, Phillips, Tkachuk and Mikael Backlund.

Bennett’s game-winner was the dagger in the heart of a Sharks team that had been leaking scoring chances for roughly 30 minutes at that point.

The Sharks dressed six players that they recalled from their AHL camp (after trimming down their roster on the weekend). Those players accounted for two of their five goals.

The Flames hit the road tomorrow for a mini road trip to cap off their preseason. They’re in San Jose on Thursday night and then head to Edmonton for a Saturday afternoon contest to finish off their exhibition calendar.

The next time we see the Flames on home ice, it’ll be on Sat., Oct. 6 in a game that matters.