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The Flames’ special teams units start coming into focus against Vancouver

Photo credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images

By Ryan Pike

Sep 23, 2026, 10:00 EDTUpdated: Sep 23, 2026, 01:26 EDT

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The Calgary Flames hosted the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday evening at the Scotiabank Saddledome, winning by a 3-1 score.

The Canucks brought a fairly youthful – AHL-level, really – line-up, and so the flow of the game was rather tilted towards the home side. But that sort of game gave the Flames an opportunity to try out the new-look special teams units that they’ve been using in practices in a competitive environment.

The power play

The Flames had four power plays, for a total of 5:00 of power play time. They generated five shots.

The first unit featured Zayne Parekh, Matvei Gridin, Matt Coronato, Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee. The second unit features Simon Nemec, Yegor Sharangovich, Ryan Strome, Connor Zary and Maxim Tsyplakov.

The first unit ended up opening the scoring 15:00 into the second period off a nice rush sequence.

The penalty kill

The Flames had three penalty kills, for a total of 4:18 of penalty kill time. They allowed one shot.

The Flames rotate three forward pairs and two defensive pairs on the penalty kill. The forward pairs were Mikael Backlund & Sam Honzek, Martin Pospisil & Joel Farabee, and Ryan Strome & Yegor Sharangovich. The defensive pairs were Jake Middleton & Kevin Bahl and Yan Kuznetsov & Zach Whitecloud.

Everyone contributed

The Flames dressed 18 skaters. 17 of the 18 factored into one side of special teams or the other. Heck, a few of them got onto both sides. Speaking after the game, Flames head coach Ryan Huska discussed the importance of getting his lineup involved on either side of special teams.

“Well, they have to be able to do it first,” said Huska. “I mean, that’s the the thing, I feel like we have guys that are penalty killers and we most definitely have power play guys. But if you can work it that way, if you have the the lineup that’s capable of doing it, it helps bring value to what a player feels that he brings to the team and when a player feels valued they’re a better player for you. So when it’s possible, I like to have everybody involved in it and hopefully that’s something that we can continue.”

Pretty much everybody was involved against Vancouver on special teams, aside from Adam Klapka.

On both units:

Sharangovich: 2:11 PP, 0:32 PK
Strome: 2:00 PP, 0:36 PK
Farabee 3:00 PP, 1:10 PK

Power play primarily:

Frost: 2:20 PP, 0:00 PK
Parekh 2:35 PP, 0:00 PK
Coronato 2:22 PP, 0:00 PK
Zary: 2:16 PP, 0:00 PK
Nemec: 2:22 PP, 0:53 PK
Tsyplakov: 2:00 PP, 0:00 PK
Gridin: 2:35 PP, 0:00 PK

Penalty kill primarily:

Bahl: 1:37 PK, 0:27 PP
Backlund: 2:38 PK, 0:25 PP
Whitecloud: 1:49 PK, 0:03 PP
Honzek: 2:36 PK, 0:21 PP
Kuznetsov: 1:51 PK, 0:03 PP
Middleton: 2:25 PK, 0:00 PP
Pospisil: 1:05 PK, 0:00 PP

Neither unit:

Klapka: 0:00 PP, 0:00 PK

All-in-all, you can sort of see the logic in terms of getting as many Flames players involved on either side of special teams – or both – and in terms of which players seem to be factoring in.

We’ll see if this lineup configuration continues, and if the Flames can find success on both sides of special teams, as the 2026-27 begins on Oct. 1.

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