A tremendous performance from Dustin Wolf was crucial as the Calgary Flames earned a 3-0 shutout victory over the visiting Florida Panthers.

It’s a Team Game – Calgary was coming off a blowout loss on home ice, so the expectation was going to be a hard-working team ready to redeem themselves. They were able to go chance for chance with the defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers until about the third period. That’s where Florida had a high danger chance advantage at 5v5 of six to one. The thing they didn’t have – the goal advantage. Dustin Wolf was back to his quick and agile game in the Flames crease and was able to thwart every single one of Florida’s attempts. From breakaway stops to a perfect penalty kill he was the number one reason Calgary claimed these two points.

Corsi King – Martin Pospisil (83.28 CF%) only saw 3 shot attempts against in over fourteen minutes of 5v5 play. He’s been a quality dirty work guy for Kadri (52.49 per cent) and Huberdeau (48.83 per cent) freeing up them to rack up the goals for the Flames. That line has reliably started to contribute at least a goal every game since they’ve been put together – something Calgary had been missing all year. Since being put together in the third period of the Penguins game Nov. 30 Huberdeau has four goals and nine points while Kadri has four goals and seven points both in seven games played. Defensively they are still allowing more chances against than before, but Calgary needed the offence. So long as the production continues the Flames can’t afford to split them up.

Taken By Chance – After an extremely rough outing against the Tampa Bay Lightning the pairing of Andersson (43.51 SCF% || 74.59 HDCF%) and Bahl (61.75 per cent || 79.77 per cent) had big bounce back evenings. Andersson was engaged in the match at a high level all night long and played very intelligent when trying to preserve the shutout late. While others failed to clear the zone with some soft exit opportunities Andersson took his time and volleyed the puck out through the neutral zone multiple times. He played a great game to try and help his goaltender out. On the other side of the defence pairings Brayden Pachal (44.32 per cent || 21.87 per cent) and Jake Bean (44.32 per cent || 21.87 per cent) got roasted for seven high danger chances against 5v5.

xGF% – Blake Coleman (41.87 per cent) and Mikael Backlund (43.21 per cent) had some time apart, and the results weren’t the best. Both players had their offensive production fall off a cliff. So, after the blowout, Ryan Huska put the two back together with Matt Coronato (40.68 per cent) and they immediately started to contribute again. It was worth the try seeing if the two could be apart – spread the veteran reliability out – but I think the Flames get much more effective results with the pairing together. Coronato has meshed very well with them as well. The unfortunate thing was Jakob Pelletier (13.34 per cent) and Connor Zary (18.93 per cent) did not fair well in their time together. Didn’t give up any goals, obviously, but certainly spent the majority of the zone defending scoring chances rather than generating their own.

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In The Crease – Flashes of brilliance at just 23 years old has the entire hockey world talking about Dustin Wolf. He just went up against the player he was backup to at the World Junior Championships in 2020 and 2021 and blanked them. A team that just went to the Cup Final two years in a row. It was not a night that the Panthers were lacking on offence by any means either. No, it was a Dustin Wolf steal job at the highest possible level. 2.25 expected goals against at 5v5 with Wolf stopping every single one. Hold on for a bit there Logan Cooley, Wolf’s earned a chance to go for a couple more if Vladar’s going to be out a little bit.