That had the potential to turn out much, much worse than it actually did. And while you would like to see an overall stronger performance – say, a more concentrated effort over the course of a full 60 minutes – hey, when the Flames are able to tie it back up, they definitely have a new life to them.

The Flames, overall, were the better team. Yeah, they got scored on early, but were able to respond before the first period closed out – and they won the possession battle each period, and it wasn’t even close.

But man. Say what you will about Brock Boeser’s goal that probably shouldn’t have been (or, more accurately, say what you will about the officials who decided Mark Giordano was the only one who should get a penalty and then stuck with it for some completely inexplicable reason), but fact was, even if the Flames shouldn’t have been down going into the third, they were still going to have to actually score another goal at some point.

It took them a little bit to get going, but they fought to tie the game up. And just like against Montreal, as soon as it was – as soon as it was clear the hockey gods had not discarded them, that they still had a chance to win the game – they turned it on.

At 5v5, the Flames out-corsied the Canucks 21-5 in the third period. That is insane. It wasn’t just Vancouver sitting on a lead, either; there were still about eight and a half minutes to go in the period with the game tied. And the Flames just kept brutalizing them, until Sam Bennett was finally able to deliver the gut punch and deny them a point with 70 seconds to go.

You’re never going to get that level of effort over the course of a full game. But it would be great to see it before they have the game tied up, too – or, more preferably, to come out that strong and to have them demoralize the other team for a change.

Gee, it’s almost as if Matthew Tkachuk is a good player whose presence helps his team on the ice. He was right in saying he had no excuse to not have a good game last night, so that it was him to tie the game up, and then ice it, made things all the better.

His line, of course, were the top corsi players for the Flames, and that’s on a night in which just one guy – Micheal Ferland – was under 50%. He had five shots on the night (credit to his linemate, Michael Frolik had seven – they’re both tied for fourth on the Flames with 72 total shots each), and the two goals bumped him up to six on the season, which is good for fifth on the team.

Yeah, maybe it’s not a great sign when your fifth highest goal-scorer is only at six goals, but his 8.33% shooting percentage this season is a touch under his 9.2% from last year. He likely isn’t going to start doing any worse; if anything, he probably either treads water or picks it up a little more.

But he’s getting pucks to the net, he’s creating havoc around the net, he’s exceptional defensively and the puck is much more likely to be in the offensive zone when he’s around. He is just a really good player. And scoring on the other team should piss them off more than any nonsense antics ever will. (Though when he returned from his first suspension earlier in the season, he had a two-assist night. Huh, look at that.)

Bennett earned the hell out of that game-winner. Game-winning goals is a pretty stupid stat overall, because most of the time, they aren’t going to come in a dramatic effort in overtime or in the final minute of the game. An innocuous second-period goal to put a team up 3-1 could be the game-winner in the end. Whatever.

But then you get those moments wherein you can actually use the word “clutch” to describe a goal and have it mean something. Bennett was so close to scoring just a few seconds before; that he stuck with it and kept buzzing around the net until he was able to hit his target – it was just a fantastic effort.

Bennett now has three goals and eight points in his last seven games. Yes, he started his season off with a 15-game pointless drought. No, 11 points in 30 games is still not a great stat line. And no, you can’t eliminate that start to the season just because 11 points in 15 games sounds a lot better. But his play has gotten significantly better over the past couple of weeks, and now, he’s getting tangible results for it.

He’s only 21. Giving up on any player during a bad stretch – shoutouts to T.J. Brodie and Travis Hamonic here, too – is never a good idea. I get it’s already his third season and he’s approaching 200 career games, but come on – we’ve always known Bennett could do better, because we’ve seen it, time and time again. Here he is now. Hopefully it’s the breakout we’ve been waiting for.

Of course, for all of the third period heroics and exceptional Tkachuk and Bennett goals, a lot of angst could have been avoided if the Flames had just done something, anything, with any one of their four powerplay attempts. You know, like, maybe get more than one shot off. (Or honestly, at any strength of play, get a shot off to begin with when it’s a two-on-one or three-on-one or not waiting too long and holding on to the puck to cut off the angle themselves or whatever they were thinking multiple times last night.)

The Flames’ powerplay still rests in the upper half of the NHL’s ranks – it’s 14th overall – but good god, has it been poor as of late. They had a minute-long five-on-three to work with the previous game, nothing. They had four tries this time around, and it was somehow even worse. Mikael Backlund and Frolik had a better chance shorthanded.

Mark Jankowski had 44 seconds of powerplay time. Bennett had 37. Kris Versteeg is gone, there’s nothing that can be done about that, so someone please give a kid a meaningful shot, not a handful of pity seconds at the end when nothing has gone in and more time has been spent chasing the puck and giving up scoring chances.

Remember how the penalty kill was in the top five to start the season and then plummeted? Yeah.

Curtis Lazar played 6:45 last night, so when Jaromir Jagr is healthy enough to play again, there’s probably your answer as to who comes out of the lineup. Everyone else got over 10 minutes in ice time.

Garnet Hathaway played 11:53, is on a two-game point streak, and had his first multi-point game of the season with two assists, so he’s probably safe for the time being. Like, you know how Tanner Glass was signed after preseason because he played legitimately well in those meaningless games and earned a contract? (Only to then not be able to keep up with NHL-level play?) That’s pretty much what Hathaway has to do night in and night out and, well, he’s doing it.

Michael Stone played 12:34. Brett Kulak played 9:18. Some of that is no doubt due to special teams, but man, that’s a lot of leaning on the upper half of the roster.