Gang, you know how sometimes, you can see two lineups on paper and kind of have an inkling of how a hockey game is going to go? Well, that’s the type of evening that unfolded at the Scotiabank Saddledome as the Calgary Flames met the Vancouver Canucks in exhibition action.

The Flames dressed literally their opening day lineup, save for backup Devin Cooley. The Canucks dressed a group more likely to be toiling in AHL Abbotsford when the games start counting later this month. And well, that’s how the game went. The Flames beat the Canucks by a 3-1 score to close out the home portion of their pre-season commitments.

This was a one-sided hockey game. The Flames held serve for the majority of the game, and the Canucks seemed content to hang in there and maybe eke out a scoring chance before the game started getting away from them in the second period.

Kevin Lankinen stopped the first 19 shots he faced from the Flames. Then, in the last five minutes of the second period, three of the next seven shots he faced resulted in goals.

On a power play, the Flames finally broke the deadlock 35 minutes into the game. Off a rush, Matvei Gridin found Joel Farabee near the slot, and his shot dribbled over Lankinen’s arm and into the Canucks net to make it 1-0 Flames.

Two and a half minutes later, the Flames scored off another rush chance, with Matt Coronato picking the top corner with a snap shot to give the Flames a 2-0 edge.

A little later, they scored again. This time, Farabee won an offensive zone draw. Zayne Parekh received a pass, pinched down and drove the net. His shot was stopped, but Sam Honzek bonked in the rebound to go up 3-0.

The Canucks spoiled Dustin Wolf’s shutout bid midway through the third period, as Braeden Cootes intercepted a Jake Middleton clearing attempt, swung low and found Arshdeep Bains in slot area. Bains’ shot beat Wolf to cut the Calgary lead to 3-1.

That’s how it ended, as the Flames held on for the victory in this friendly clash.

As the saying goes: they are who we thought they were.

The Abbotsford Canucks, such as they were, put up a good fought. Some of their younger players showed flashes – we can watch Adam Notovny and Braeden Cootes all day, thank you very much – but they weren’t able to generate much consistently because they were out-matched.

The Flames looked to be finding their rhythm and knocking the rust off. This was the perfect game for them to do that.

Some of the younger players in red looked quite good. We’ll give shout-outs to the usual suspects: Matvei Gridin, Matt Coronato, Sam Honzek, Zayne Parekh and Yan Kuznetsov. The fourth line group had some nice flashes, too. And honestly, nobody really struggled, though Yegor Sharangovich occasionally made passes that just couldn’t find their intended recipient, and Simon Nemec seems to be working on figuring out his timing within the Flames’ system.

Given the circumstances of this game for the Flames, they did just fine.

Calgary’s lines:

Gridin-Frost-Coronato
Honzek-Backlund[C]-Farabee
Zary-Strome-Sharangovich
Tsyplakov-Pospisil-Klapka

Bahl-Nemec
Middleton[A]-Parekh
Kuznetsov-Whitecloud [A]

Dustin Wolf started in net and went the distance. He was backed up by Kirill Zarubin.

Vancouver’s lines:

Novotny-Cootes-Fix-Wolansky
Bains-Raty-Stienburg
Safonov-Mueller-Rogowski
Berard-Patterson-Bryzgalov

Schuldt-Manicini
Brisebois-Willander
Kudryavtsev-Clayton

Kevin Lankinen started in net, backed up by Aleksei Medvedev.

The Flames hit the road after this for their final two exhibition contests. They visit Seattle on Thursday before concluding their pre-season schedule on Saturday in Edmonton.

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