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Instant Reaction: Flames return home, let win slip away against Anaheim
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Photo credit: Brett Holmes-Imagn Images
Ryan Pike
Nov 6, 2026, 22:45 EST
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Welcome to Instant Reaction, where we give you our instant reaction to tonight’s Calgary Flames game and ask our readers to do the same in the comments section below! 
The Calgary Flames returned home after a 1-1-1 performance over a three game road trip, hosting the Anaheim Ducks on Friday evening to begin a three game homestand.
The Flames were really good in the first period and much less so over the final 40 minutes. In a game that really felt like two separate games, the Flames dropped a 5-3 contest to the Ducks.

The rundown

The Flames opened the scoring early. Some nice puck movement led to a Zayne Parekh shot from a sharp angle – Parekh had wandered down from the point to the lower part of the circles to Lukas Dostal’s right – and the rebound bounced out right to William Stromgren in front, where he jammed the puck past Dostal to give the Flames a 1-0 lead.
Ont he very next shift, though, the Ducks answered back. The Flames won some puck battles in their own end… but Simon Nemec swept the puck right to Ducks forward Jeff Malott. He drove the net and chipped the puck past Dustin Wolf to tie the game at 1-1.
Late in the period, the Flames retook the lead. They won an offensive zone draw and Dostal made the initial stop on a shot by Morgan Frost. But the rebound went right out to Joel Hanley, who fired it past Dostal to give the Flames a 2-1 lead.
Matt Coronato drew a late power play for the Flames. On that power play, Parekh’s initial shot was stopped, but Dostal lost all track of the rebound, giving Joel Farabee ages to get to the loose puck and fire it into the yawning cage to give the Flames a 3-1 lead.
The Ducks changed goalies for the second, with Ville Husso tending net from then on out. The Ducks seemed much more tenacious on their forecheck, and the Flames seemed to have trouble managing the puck.
Midway through the second, after a Flames power play failed to generate a ton, the Ducks scored. The Ducks won a puck battle just inside the Flames’ blueline, and Jackson LaCombe played the puck to the slot for Tristan Luneau. Luneau fired a wrister that beat Wolf to cut the Flames’ lead to 3-2.
Early in the third period, the Flames gave the Ducks a man advantage off a Matt Coronato puck-over-glass minor penalty, and the Ducks capitalized. Beckett Sennecke had the puck below the Flames’ goal line, with Jake Middleton covering Leo Carlsson in the slot. Middleton skated towards Sennecke to challenge the puck carrier, which left Carlsson open to receive a pass and fire the puck past Wolf to tie the game at 3-3.
The Ducks kept pressing, and with 1:34 left in regulation Cutter Gauthier blasted a one-timer past Wolf to give the visitors a 4-3 lead.
The Flames pulled Wolf for the extra attacker to hunt for the equalizer, but couldn’t muster anything else. Nikita Nesterenko added an empty-netter to make it a 5-3 Ducks win.

Why the Flames lost

The Flames were really good in the opening period, and the Ducks were pretty flat. The Ducks seemed to make some good adjustments as the second period wore on, and they did a nice job using speed and skill to disrupt the Flames. The Flames had trouble with the Ducks’ forecheck and didn’t seem able to manage the puck very well in the later stages of the game. It really felt like someone plugged the Ducks’ controller in after 20 minutes.
But if you go back and look at the Ducks’ goals, all were off Flames turnovers or coverage lapses. The Ducks were quite good in the last two periods of the game, but the Flames made mistakes at bad times.

Red Warrior

This was another good effort from Joel Farabee, so we’ll give him the nod.
Stick-taps to Zayne Parekh, though. He made some really nice plays with the puck.

Turning point

Shots were 23-10 after Anaheim switched goalies to open the second period. That move seemed to wake up the visitors.

Flames lineup

The Flames looked like this against Anaheim:
Joel Farabee – Mikael Backlund [C] – Matt Coronato
Matvei Gridin – Martin Pospisil – Ryan Strome [A]
Yegor Sharangovich – Morgan Frost – Aydar Suniev
William Stromgren – Jonathan Castagna – Adam Klapka
Joel Hanley – Simon Nemec
Jake Middleton – Zach Whitecloud [A]
Yan Kuznetsov – Zayne Parekh
Dustin Wolf started in net, backed up by Devin Cooley. The healthy extras were Joel Hanley and Maxim Tsyplakov. Jonathan Huberdeau, Sam Honzek, Brennan Othmann and Kevin Bahl missed the game due to injury. Bahl was a late scratch, replaced by Hanley.

This and that

The Flames debuted their snazzy Hometown Remix jerseys for this game.
The goal song for this game was The Black Keys’ 2011 hit “Gold on the Ceiling.” Because the Flaming C on the Hometown Remix jerseys is gold and has a sublimated grid pattern mimicking the Saddledome’s ceiling.
Joel Hanley’s goal was his first since Apr. 5, 2025. Hanley played 74 games between goals, and 33 different Flames scored at least once between Hanley goals.

After Burner

Join Mike Gould and Robert Munnich right after the game for After Burner!

Up next

The Flames (7-9-1) are back in action on Sunday night when they host the Philadelphia Flyers.

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