Folks, the Calgary Flames have completed 41 of their 82 games in the 2025-26 regular season schedule. In other words: we’re halfway home for the 2025-26 season, and we’ve completed two quarters of Flames hockey.

With that in mind, let’s dig into second quarter report cards for the Flames, covering the period between Nov. 19 (their 22nd game) through Jan. 3 (their 41st game). During that run, the Flames went 13-6-1 and started to climb out of the chasm they dug for themselves with their rough first quarter.

On an individual level, we saw some improved performances, too. Here are second quarter report cards, gang. We’re focusing just on the second quarter period, and a player has to have played in five games or more to get a letter grade.

Part one of this rundown covers defencemen and goaltenders. Part two will cover the Flames’ forwards.

Andersson played pretty much exclusively with Kevin Bahl on the Flames’ tough-minutes pairing. He had 18 points over the 20 games of Q2 and posted a plus-6. Simply put, Andersson was excellent. It’s hard to find quibbles with his game right now.

Bahl played alongside Rasmus Andersson all quarter. He doesn’t have the offensive numbers that his partner does (with just three points over 20 games), so he’s dinged a bit, but he performed well in his role.

Bean played three games, mostly on the third pairing, before stepping away due to a lingering injury that required surgery.

As a rookie, Kuznetsov is playing on the Flames’ second pairing with MacKenzie Weegar. He had seven points over the quarter and an even rating. He’s been really good in his role.

Hanley plays on the Flames’ third pairing, usually with Hunter Brzustewicz or Brayden Pachal (or Jake Bean before his injury). He had just three points in the quarter, but he provided rock-solid minutes for his team given his role.

Brzustewicz got the chance to play regular NHL minutes with Joel Hanley on the third pairing. He hasn’t registered any points and we’re dinging him a bit for that, but it’s hard to find much to complain about his game – the offence will probably come as he gets more reps.

Weegar had a big bounce-back quarter, playing almost exclusively with Yan Kuznetsov. The power play production isn’t quite there yet, but he had 11 points in 20 games and has largely avoided the big lulls in his game.

Pachal played seven games on the third pairing with Joel Hanley before sitting for awhile in favour of Hunter Brzustewicz. Before he was rotated out, though, Pachal was perfectly fine.

Cooley went 4-2-1 with a 2.74 goals against average and .904 save percentage in Q2. He was generally quite good and gave the Flames a chance whenever he started.

Wolf went 9-4-0 with a 2.57 goals against average and .914 save percentage in Q2. He was consistently good and occasionally great.