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Beyond the Boxscore: Flames suffer fourth straight blowout as Avalanche breeze to a 7-3 victory

Photo credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images

By Flash Stevens

Oct 9, 2026, 10:00 EDTUpdated: Oct 9, 2026, 09:48 EDT

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Just another day in Calgary, where the rebuild continues and the Flames struggle to score and defend, losing 7-3 to the Colorado Avalanche Thursday night.

CF% – 43.19% || SCF% – 43.31% || HDCF% – 44.4% || xGF% – 54.78%

It’s a Team Game – Lets hammer home some positives first, because it’s really easy to nitpick some negatives this early. The Calgary Flames played their best first period of the season. They left the frame tied, with more high danger chances and in a good spot for things to possibly go right. Jonathan Castagna got his first NHL point in his first ever period played, rounding out a good solid 20 minutes.

Then the wheels fell off, again.

As expected, things were going to be rough this year. However, this is as catastrophic a start as it could possibly be. The second period saw the Avalanche take over and they only continued the beatdown into the third. The goaltending has not done anyone any favours, but the constant breakdowns in defensive reads and breakdowns is not helping either. The young guys have had individual flashes, but outside of Zayne Parekh they are sporadic and have led to very little in terms of tangible offence. I do think better days this season are ahead, more experience will only help, but that does not mean it’s going to look good in the short term.

Corsi King – Yegor Sharangovich (70.32 CF%) was top of the list today with a 20-8 advantage in shot attempts. He’s been having a solid start to the year in every aspect except where Calgary needs him most – scoring goals. I’d rather have a more than double shot advantage than not, but some scoring to pair with it would go a long way for a team starved for goals constantly. A trend from the back-end that’s also encouraging – Simon Nemec (49.71%) is consistently being involved in the creation of shot attempts. He’s giving up a bunch as well, but this team’s been starved for goals for years to the point that even this early trend of shots is exciting.

Under Pressure –

Taken By Chance – It was nice to see Kevin Bahl (73.84 SCF% // 61.64 HDCF%) get a goal here. Kind of wild, when that trade happened I never once thought there would be a period of play where we could definitively say Bahl is the Flames current best all-around defenceman, yet here we are. He’s as reliable an option as they have. He can take on all the prime matchups and harder responsibilities while giving the offensive minutes to the other youngsters.

The fourth line thrived in their limited minutes. Adam Klapka (47.69% // 100%) had a beautiful toe drag snipe in the first to really ignite the ‘Dome for the first time in its farewell voyage. He and the call-ups Aydar Suniev (39.65% // 75.48%) with Jonathan Castagna (31.57% // 100%) were the Flames most consistent line when deployed. By all means a great first impression by both that deserves more time and more looks as things move forward.

xG Breakdown –

xGF% – Martin Pospisil (11.46%) was back playing centre and it did not go well at all. He and his line got buried in their own end consistently and failed to generate much. It’s one game back and we know Calgary has time, so hopefully in the next two games against the Ducks we can see some growth here. Why not try something new when nothing else is working? Jacob Middleton (20.77%) is still adjusting to Calgary here, so for me that comes with leeway. It’s hard when things start like this to really gauge where he’s at with this team, if his partner is currently correct, and just some more comfortability with Calgary in general.

Game Flow –

Shot Heatmap –

In The Crease – I mentioned it up top, but the goaltending being off is a big reason for this bad start. Certainly not all of the blame is pointed there, and it’s rare cases where it ever should be, but they are complicit in the amount of goals going in. Tonight it was Devin Cooley (2.40 expected goals against) having 7 goals get by him, all at 5v5. Solid first, not a good second, even worse third. Some of those pucks have to be stopped. Look at the shot heatmap above this for a second, look at all the different areas the Avs were able to score goals from. It did not matter where the shot came from there was a hole in the goaltenders’ coverage. Both Wolf and Cooley need to re-find their NHL game here to keep things at least marginally competitive.

The Goals –

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1:49 AM · Oct 9, 2026

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