Wayne Gretzky once said that you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.

On Saturday night, Calgary Flames goaltender Dustin Wolf had an opportunity to shoot on an empty net in the third period of the Flames’ 4-2 win over the New York Islanders.

He narrowly missed out on scoring his first career NHL goal.

Officially, the game log had Wolf credited with a 176 foot missed shot. His shot attempt had good distance, but took a hop just to the left and missed the net by just a few feet.

Following the game, Wolf reflected to the media on getting so close to lighting the lamp.

“You know, I just tried to get it off as quick as I could,” said Wolf. “I like the angle it took at it, but just a bad hop. You don’t get too many opportunities where they pull their guy with eight minutes to go, and we’ll try again next time.”

Flames head coach Ryan Huska indicated he was fine with Wolf taking the chance at the empty net given the circumstances of the game, with the Flames up 4-1 in the third period.

“He tried it before, remember earlier in the year?” said Huska. “We’re up three. If he has an opportunity like that, I’m okay with it. Like I told him before, just make sure he’d make the save if it comes back again. So it would have been neat to see it going. I know the crowd would have been pretty excited if it would have.”

Despite missing an empty net, Wolf made 28 saves on 30 shots to pace the Flames to victory to cap off a strong team effort from the home side. Wolf made 10 stops during an often hectic opening period and was very sharp when called upon. The Flames had four different goal-scorers – Yegor Sharangovich, Adam Klapka, Justin Kirkland and Yan Kuznetsov – and 10 different Flames had points.

Admist fervent speculation about his future with the Flames, blueliner Rasmus Andersson set up Sharangovich’s first period goal and played a team high 25:40, 4:02 more than the next-highest Flames skater. It was a strong outing for Andersson, pretty representative of a season that’s seen him post 30 points over 48 games and re-establish himself as the team’s top defenceman.

The Flames continue their homestand on Monday evening when they host the New Jersey Devils.