By this time next week, the Calgary Flames will be preparing to begin their 2024-25 regular season. In the meantime, they have several games to play and decisions to make.
A pretty important week for the hockey club began on Monday evening with a 4-3 pre-season win in overtime at the Saddledome.

The rundown

The Kraken opened the scoring in the opening frame off a bit of a weird, broken play behind the Flames’ net. Ilya Solovyov was battling with a Kraken forward and the puck was jostled loose and slid behind the net. Rasmus Andersson went to chase the puck but couldn’t quite get to it. Chandler Stephenson got to the puck first and fired it to the front of the net, where Eeli Tolvanen beat Solovyov to and tapped the puck past Dan Vladar. That made it 1-0 Seattle.
But the Flames evened things up a little later off a really nice sequence involving the fourth line and third pairing. Ryan Lomberg won a puck battle in the corner of the Seattle zone. He threw a smart pass to the right side of the zone, where Brayden Pachal was sneaking down to the top of the circles. Pachal’s shot beat Joey Daccord to tie the game at 1-1.
A little later in the first period, Sam Honzek hustled to 50/50 puck and drew a penalty. On the resulting offensive zone face-off, Tyson Barrie’s point shot ricocheted around the side of the net. Mikael Backlund chucked the puck into the crease from Daccord’s right, and it bonked off Blake Coleman and in to make it a 2-1 Flames lead.
In the dying moments of the first period, though, Seattle drew even, as blueliner Ville Ottovainen fired a point shot on the Flames net with teammate John Hayden parked in front. Ottovainen’s shot found the corner of the net behind Vladar to tie the game up at 2-2.
The start of the second period featured a flurry of penalties, where at one point the Flames had three players in the box and Seattle had one – all of independent minor penalties on separate plays.
On a subsequent Flames penalty kill, Yegor Sharangovich sent Sam Honzek in one-on-one against Vince Dunn. Honzek whizzed around Dunn, cut to the front of the net and tucked the puck past Daccord to make it a 3-2 Flames lead.
But early in the third period, on another Kraken power play, Seattle drew even again… albeit on a bit of a controversial sequence. There was a net-front scramble where Seattle’s Max McCormick made contact with Vladar, causing Vladar to lose his stick (and fall down). The play continued, and Shane Wright scored off a rebound. Since then goal was scored well after the incidental contact, it wasn’t deemed as goalie interference (per head coach Ryan Huska) and the goal stood to make it 3-3.
This one went to extra time. Nazem Kadri finished a feed from Andrei Kuzmenko in overtime to take this game by a 4-3 score.

Why the Flames won (in overtime)

The Flames dressed a more star-studded roster than Seattle, but they were generally pretty effective in all three zones and executed a little better with the puck than the visitors did.

Red Warrior

If you were hoping this game would help roster decisions… it didn’t. Vladar was excellent, covering up for some shaky defensive plays at times – and he’s not really responsible for the goals he gave up. Honzek was also superb.
A few others were quite noticeable for positive reasons, too, including Sam Morton, Adam Klapka, Lomberg and Pachal.
Barrie and Matt Coronato both showed their good and more challenging traits. Playing on his off side, Barrie wasn’t great in his own end, but he had a couple assists and helped boost the PP. Coronato created a lot offensively, but wasn’t able to translate good looks into good chances (or goals).

Turning point

The Flames played pretty well for the first two periods, and it was a bit of a shame to see such an odd sequence on the third Seattle goal spoil it somewhat.

This and that

Here’s how the Flames lined up:
Honzek-Kadri-Kuzmenko
Huberdeau [A]-Sharangovich-Coronato
Pelletier-Backlund [C]-Coleman
Lomberg-Morton-Klapka
Weegar [A]-Miromanov
Solovyov-Andersson
Barrie-Pachal
Dan Vladar stated in goal and went the distance, backed up by Devin Cooley.
As noted by Sportsnet 960’s Pat Steinberg and Logan Gordon, Mikael Backlund didn’t play in the third period.

Up next

The Flames are back in pre-season action on Wednesday evening when they visit the Winnipeg Jets.