On Sunday night, the Calgary Flames posted a pretty significant win, beating the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Carolina Hurricanes. However, the team’s captain, shutdown centre Mikael Backlund, suffered a late-game injury and while he’s expected back soon, he wasn’t in the lineup for the Flames when they hosted the powerhouse Minnesota Wild.

Well, apparently it’s no Backlund, no problem.

The Flames played two really strong periods and then got some strong goaltending en route to a 2-1 victory over the Wild on Thursday night.

The Wild entered the game smarting a bit after losing to the Edmonton Oilers by a 4-3 score in overtime on Tuesday night – victims of three Oilers power play goals. The Flames’ special teams were equally a thorn in the Wild’s collective side. The Flames went two-for-four on the power play, with Aydar Suniev and Joel Farabee scoring first period man advantage markers.

As the game went on, the penalty kill then stepped up, solving all four Minnesota power plays.

And in the third period, when the Wild pressed and out-shot the Flames by a 17-3 margin, Devin Cooley was up to the challenge.

All-in-all, while the Flames didn’t play 60 perfect minutes, they played well enough to win.

“I’m really glad I was able to make some saves because the guys tonight were just unbelievable,” said Cooley, who made 36 saves in the win. “Like, everyone was blocking shots. The power play was great. The penalty kill was great. Like, it was just incredible. Like, we were scoring. It was just so much fun to watch. And we were all over them. They had like no grade A chances basically for, you know, 50 minutes or whatever along the game is… And then it was like the last five or 10 minutes where I was like, okay, now it’s my turn. Like to return the favor a little bit. Like the guys battled so hard for me. I wanted to battle for them.”

With Backlund out of the lineup, the Flames opted to go for a balanced approach, with Ben Jones (4:13), Martin Pospisil (3:54), Jonathan Castagna (3:40) and Morgan Frost (3:16) all getting head-to-head time against the Wild’s top line at even strength, per Natural Stat Trick.

“I just think when Backs goes down, it’s tough because he’s usually our match-up guy against a lot of top lines,” said Farabee. “I think the good thing with that is it provided some opportunity for some other guys. Obviously, Jonesy [Ben Jones] came up and played really well against their top line a lot of the night. George [Jonathan Castagna] played really well, I thought. So I think it just makes everyone else have to elevate their game. Obviously, with a team like that, they have a ton of skills. You’ve got to be smart and play on the defensive side and things like that. I think the young guys looked really good tonight.”

“If you look at our forward minutes, they’re fairly spread out,” said Huska. “And everybody had a shift or a number of shifts against their top line, so that is a collective effort. So it was what we needed to have tonight, and we’re pleased with the way the guys showed up.”

The Flames started the season with an 0-5-0 record. And while they probably deserved a better fate in the aggregate, they did enough things poorly in each game to tilt each in the other team’s favour. But for the second consecutive game, against a really strong opponent, the Flames played some pretty good hockey, and did enough good things that they were rewarded with a win.

They aren’t playing 60 perfect minutes quite yet, but their overall game has made massive strides.

“You know what, I just think that guys are, you know, hungry,” said Strome. “Guys are hungry for an opportunity. I mean, you see a few guys out of the lineup. You kind of see what our lineup looks like, and there’s opportunity for guys. I think guys are taking great advantage of it, whether it’s PK, whether it’s power play. And the coaches do a great job in here of giving us a framework of what works, I think. And we’re doing a great job of going out and executing it. So I know it sounds a little bit simple, but when you follow a game plan and the game plan sets you up for success and you do it the right way, that’s what happens. There’s a ton of good credit to go around tonight. I’m just happy for the group. We’ve had our ups and downs already, but the last couple of days feels good.”

The Flames return to action on Saturday night when they host the Detroit Red Wings.