The Calgary Flames took advantage of a completely disjointed San Jose Sharks squad on their way to a 2-0 victory.

It’s a Team Game – There was no other way to describe this – just domination from the Flames. San Jose looked beyond brutal right from the start. The Flames – solid defensively, as usual – had massive possession and pelted Askarov with shots every chance they got. Over 14 high danger chances for the home team who certainly deserved to score more than 2 goals, one of them being an empty netter. No passengers for Calgary wither with every single player just playing a strong, systemic game. The same one they’ve had employed for the last year – they were just able to get behind the Sharks defence more often than they have other teams. It’s a feel-good game they could use to string some together, but that will depend on how things go against Buffalo on Saturday.

Corsi King – I thought Ryan Lomberg (89.36 CF%) was going to score a goal. He was able to get a couple of incredible looks from right in the slot, but the San Jose goaltender had his number. Turns out they didn’t need his assistance, but finding the scoresheet for the first time in a season is always nice. Massive advantages in shot attempts were held by Nazem Kadri (84.35 per cent // 26 to 5), Jake Bean (82.84 per cent // 28 to 6), and MacKenzie Weegar (67.39 per cent // 22 to 11). Their linemates/partners as well – including Rory Kerins (71.10 per cent) playing in his season debut. It was the first instance this year where every single player finished with over 50% of the shot share in their 5v5 ice time. Making the Sharks pay with some strong play from the home team and abysmal efforts from the road squad.

Taken By Chance – Brayden Pachal (86.95 SCF% // 89.42 HDCF%) and Jake Bean (86.95 per cent // 89.42 per cent) had a 9 to 1 high danger chance ratio in this one. It feels deserved they ended up being the pair out there when Blake Coleman (56.28 per cent // 100 per cent) got a turnover and went in and roofed the puck for the only true score of the game. Not to discredit Samuel Honzek’s (48.89 per cent // 100 per cent) goal by too much, it was a fair amount of hustle to beat the opposition down to the puck and tuck it in. Just his second on the season, a fitting reward for a guy who was tasked to be out there in the final minute up by only 1 goal.

xGF% – Only one player on the entire team had under a 50% expected goals share. Morgan Frost (34.71 per cent) was that guy, but that doesn’t showcase the entire story. Very limited opportunities both for and against can skew this number in big ways. Frost still had a very low raw xGA total, it was just an even smaller xGF total (cumulative quality of chance rating) that made it lower. Translated: Frost didn’t play bad at all, he just didn’t produce a lot of offence. Nobody gets a “bad game” tag after this one.

In The Crease – Nice to get Wolf some numbers in the shutout column. He’s been a warrior through this lacklustre start so being able to get that shutout to the finish line has to feel good. The Flames are better than average in shot rates against this season – that style of play really helps the goaltender. They’ve been plagued by massive single game errors that end up in their net and a 32nd ranked offence/power play. Wolf’s numbers will improve as the season goes on, in terms of save percentage. I’m not sure how many Ws get stacked this year to make a statement on that.

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