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Instant Reaction: Flames’ rough third period sinks them in Vancouver
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Photo credit: Bob Frid-Imagn Images
Ryan Pike
Oct 4, 2026, 01:02 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! 
After a pretty ugly outing in their season-opener on home ice on Thursday, the Calgary Flames headed to the coast to visit the Vancouver Canucks looking for redemption on Saturday night.
The good news is the Flames were much better than they were on Thursday. The bad news is they weren’t nearly as sharp as they needed to be in the third period, giving up four goals in the final frame and losing 4-1 to the Canucks.

The rundown

The game began with some feistiness, with Adam Klapka fighting Luke Schenn early on.
The Flames had some really effective penalty-killing early on, generating some shorthanded opportunities but no goals.
They ended up drawing a penalty in the latter stages of the period and were rewarded. Joel Farabee won a face-off back to the point, where Zayne Parekh teed up a pass for Matt Coronato. Coronato skated to the top of the circles near the slot and fired a laser of a shot past Leevi Merilainen to give the Flames a 1-0 lead.
First period shots were 11-5 Flames.
The second period was fairly back and forth and fairly nondescript, aside from a bit of rough stuff late in the frame.
After an Aatu Raty shot on net, saved by Devin Cooley, Kevin Bahl shoved Raty into the boards from behind. It looked pretty ugly and a scrum erupted, but Bahl ended up with just a cross-checking minor. For what it’s worth, Raty wasn’t injured on the play and finished the game, so perhaps that factored into the officials’ decision-making.
Second period shots were 8-8.
1:28 into the third period, the Canucks got a goal. A weird goal! Liam Ohgren fired the puck on net and Cooley made a save. Well, he made most of it. The puck dribbled towards the goal line, but Cooley dove in and looked like he prevented a possible goal.
The play was reviewed – “Did it go in?” situations are a Situation Room review – and it was decided that the puck fully crossed the line. On replays showed by the broadcast, you could see the puck over the line through the webbing of Cooley’s glove and seemingly he would have nudged the puck across the line while trying to glove it.
The league shared this rationale for the goal being allowed:
The Situation Room initiated a video review to further examine whether Liam Ohgren’s original shot entered the Calgary net while it was in the webbing of Devin Cooley’s glove. Video determined that the puck did cross the Calgary goal line.
Later on, after a pair of coincidental penalties, there was a stretch of four-on-four. During that stretch, Elias Pettersson (the defenceman) got a step on Coronato during an offensive zone rotation, received a pass from Ohgren, then beat Cooley glove-side with a nifty back-hand to give the Canucks a 2-1 lead.
https://twitte.com/Robert_Munnich/status/2106605151218004097
Late in the third period, Elias Pettersson (the forward) stepped into Zayne Parekh at the offensive blueline, knocking him down hard. The Canucks collected the puck, skated into the Flames’ zone, and Drew O’Connor snipped a shot past Cooley’s glove to give the Canucks a 3-1 lead.
Raty added an empty-netter to give the Canucks a 4-1 win.

Why the Flames won

The Flames were pretty good for two periods. They were really good on special teams. They were perfectly fine at five-on-five.
But the Flames’ details just faded away in the final 20 minutes and the Canucks took advantage. It was just a few lapses at key times, but the margins in this contest were razor-thin.

Red Warrior

Sam Honzek was real good on the penalty kill and played with a ton of energy. We’ll give him the nod.

Turning point

Man, the Flames really deflated after the Canucks tied the goal early in the third period and they never really seemed to get their bearings after that. We’ll call Ohgren’s goal (after the video review) as the turning point.

Flames lineup

The Flames looked like this against Vancouver:
Matvei Gridin – Morgan Frost – Matt Coronato
Sam Honzek – Mikael Backlund [C] – Joel Farabee
Brennan Othmann – Ryan Strome – Yegor Sharangovich
Maxim Tsyplakov – Martin Pospisil – Adam Klapka
Kevin Bahl – Zach Whitecloud [A]
Jake Middleton [A] – Zayne Parekh
Joel Hanley – Simon Nemec
Devin Cooley started in net, backed up by Jake Middleton. The healthy scratches were Yan Kuznetsov, Brayden Pachal and Connor Zary. Jonathan Huberdeau missed the game due to injury.

This and that

Prior to the game, family members of the late Vancouver broadcasting icon Jim Robson dropped the puck for the ceremonial face-off.

After Burner

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

Up next

The Flames (0-2-0) head down the road to Seattle to face the Kraken on Sunday night in the second half of this back-to-back set.

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