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Instant Reaction: Flames keep rolling, beat Red Wings on 2004 throwback night
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Photo credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images
Ryan Pike
Oct 25, 2026, 00:40 EDT
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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 entered Saturday night’s meeting with the Detroit Red Wings feeling pretty good about how their team game is trending. Nothing that transpired against Detroit did much to dampen their spirits.
Wearing their snazzy 2004 red throwback jerseys, the Flames scored first and never trailed en route to a 4-1 home victory over the Red Wings.

The rundown

The opening period was kinda clunky, with few whistles but neither side really making a ton of picturesque plays.
Late in the period, though, the home side opened the scoring. Adam Klapka threw a pass towards the slot area where a wide-open Joel Farabee received the pass and quickly wristed the puck on net, beating John Gibson to give the Flames a 1-0 lead.
The game got a bit more eventful in the second period, with both teams getting some looks offensively.
A couple minutes into the second, Detroit won a face-off in the offensive zone and the puck was chipped towards the net-front area in front of Devin Cooley. Zayne Parekh and Andrew Copp both took swipes at the bouncing puck, with Copp batting it past Cooley to tie the game at 1-1.
Midway through the period, the Flames pressed and Martin Pospisil was hooked on a scoring chance. On the resulting power play, the Flames won the offensive zone draw, made some nice passes, and Zayne Parekh’s wrister from the point glanced off Detroit defender William Willander, changing directions and bouncing into the Red Wings’ net off Gibson’s pad. That gave the Flames a 2-1 lead.
The Flames added some insurance a bit later on off a nice rush sequence. Morgan Frost carried the puck deep into the Red Wings’ zone and went wide, then threw a pass into the slot area. Battling for position, Ryan Strome got a stick blade on Frost’s pass and the puck wobbled past Gibson’s glove and into the open net to give the Flames a 3-1 lead.
Late in the period, the Red Wings took a puck-over-glass minor penalty. The Flames won an offensive zone draw, made a few quick passes, and Matvei Gridin picked the top corner on Gibson from the slot to give the Flames a 4-1 lead.
The Flames managed not to have a lull in the third period – something that was a bit of a challenge for them in their last few games – and kept battling the Red Wings in the final frame.
The home side held on for a 4-1 victory.

Why the Flames won

The Flames weren’t at their best early, but they managed to settle in and ultimately, a lot of their team probably feels good about how this evening went. They out-scored Detroit at five-on-five. They out-scored them on special teams. Their young guys were good. Their goaltending was good.
It was not a perfect outing from the home side, but it was a pretty good one.

Red Warrior

Let’s go with Joel Farabee, who had three points and was noticeable throughout this one.
But much like with their win against Minnesota, a lot of players on the home side had reasons to feel good about themselves in this hockey game.

Turning point

We’ll go with Zayne Parekh’s power play goal in the middle portion of the second period. It gave the Flames the lead, again, and they never relinquished it after that.

Flames lineup

The Flames looked like this against Detroit:
Joel Farabee [A] – Ben Jones – 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 Dustin Wolf. The healthy extras were Joel Hanley and Maxim Tsyplakov. Jonathan Huberdeau, Sam Honzek and Mikael Backlund missed the game due to injury.

This and that

This was the first of four games for the Flames wearing their 2004 throwback jerseys (with the snazzy black Flaming C). They also did a fan giveaway, handing out 2,004 replica green hard hats. The game opened with the old opening video set to Evanescence, and the ceremonial opening face-off featured Mike Commodore, Dave Lowry, Craig Conroy, Robyn Regehr, Rhett Warrener and Darryl Sutter (and his son Chris). And to add a bit of style to the proceedings, 2004 anthem singer Heather Liscano did a guest spot singing the Canadian and American national anthems.
In the Red Wings’ lineup was blueliner Andreas Englund, who signed with the Flames on July 1 but was claimed off waivers by Detroit on Sept. 26.
Jake Middleton fought Ben Chiarot in the third period.

After Burner

Join Jordan and Mike from the In The Dome podcast right after the game for After Burner!

Up next

The Flames (4-6-0) conclude their four-game homestand on Monday night when they host the Toronto Maple Leafs. (That’s an early game with a 6:30 p.m. MT start, and it’ll be a streaming-only game on Sportsnet+.)

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