After two games on the road against familiar foes from the Pacific Division, the Calgary Flames returned home to kick off a four game homestand on Sunday night. And they kicked things off against their first Eastern Conference opponent of the season, the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes.

The Flames went kept battling back in a really entertaining game, taking the lead late in the third period and holding on for a gutsy 3-2 victory over Carolina for their first home win of the season.

Neither team scored in a pretty scrambly opening period, with the Flames defending reasonably well but their puck management occasionally leading to those aforementioned scrambles.

Devin Cooley stood on his head for the first half of the game, making several saves, many of them really impressive stops of dangerous-looking Carolina scoring chances.

But the 19th shot Cooley faced hit the twine. The Hurricanes pressured off the rush, with an Eric Robinson shot being blocked, but Nicolas Deslauriers beat out a Flames defender to the loose puck and threw it on net. Cooley made the initial stop, but Jesperi Kotkaniemi, parked at the edge of the crease, jammed in the loose rebound to give Carolina a 1-0 lead.

The Flames were on their heels for awhile after that Carolina goal, including a pretty lengthy sequence where they couldn’t quite get a full line change, leaving blueliner Yan Kuznetsov on the ice for over three minutes (and Zach Whitecloud and Aydar Suniev stranded out in the defensive zone for over two minutes each). But the Flames weathered the storm and eventually broke out of their own end. Mikael Backlund rushed in and put a puck on Brandon Bussi… while everybody else made a change. After the home team corralled the reobund, Matt Coronato found Matvei Gridin coming off the bench into the slot area, and Gridin fired the puck past Bussi to tie the game at 1-1.

On the very next sequence, Carolina took a puck-over-glass delay of game minor. The Flames’ power play made some adjustments, moving the puck lower in the zone in response to Carolina’s aggressive pressing at the point. And it resulted in a very nice passing sequence, and a goal, with Zayne Parekh setting Morgan Frost in for a wide-open net and a tap-in to give the Flames a 2-1 lead.

But wait! The Hurricanes got a late offensive zone face-off. They won the draw to the point and Jalen Chatfield opted to chuck the puck towards the net. It got past several bodies – including three Flames skaters – and beat a screened Cooley to tie the game at 2-2.

Both teams had their looks in the third period, with the Flames carrying play.

With 4:28 remaining in regulation, the Flames retook the lead off a very nice rush sequence. Morgan Frost chased down a puck as it entered the Carolina zone and was joined on the rush by Aydar Suniev. Frost found Yegor Sharangovich entering the rush as the trailer on the right wing, and Sharangovich snapped a shot high past Bussi to give the Flames a 3-2 lead.

The ‘Canes pulled Bussi for the extra attacker, but the Flames held on for the victory.

Let’s call a spade a spade: the Carolina Hurricanes are a damn good hockey club, and they have few, if any weaknesses.

The Flames took awhile to get themselves going in this hockey game, but they did a really nice job of settling in – in large part to their goaltender – and they were extremely up for the challenge that the Stanley Cup champions posed, with their game improving markedly across the board between periods one and three. The Canes hit a few posts, the Flames executed on a few more offensive chances than they did, and that was enough for the two points.

It’s definitely Devin Cooley. He was superb for the red team, and kept them in the game in the first half before they found their swagger in the back half.

Alright, take your pick, friends:

The Flames looked like this against Carolina:

Joel Farabee – Mikael Backlund [C] – Matt Coronato
Matvei Gridin – Martin Pospisil – Ryan Strome [A]
Yegor Sharangovich – Morgan Frost – Aydar Suniev
Brennan Othmann – Jonathan Castagna – Adam Klapka

Kevin Bahl – Simon Nemec
Jake Middleton – Zach Whitecloud [A]
Yan Kuznetsov – Zayne Parekh

Devin Cooley started in net, backed up by Devin Cooley. The healthy extras were Joel Hanley and Maxim Tsyplakov. Jonathan Huberdeau and Sam Honzek missed the game due to injury.

This was Matt Coronato’s 200th NHL game and Morgan Frost’s 400th NHL game.

Join Mike Gould and Cami Kepke right after the game for After Burner!

The Flames (2-6-0) are back in action on Thursday when they host the Minnesota Wild in Blake Coleman’s first game back in Calgary since the big trade.

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