Devin Cooley passed a big test on Wednesday night, making 29 saves for the Calgary Flames in the second game of a back-to-back set in Salt Lake City.

And while the Flames did lose that game, Cooley gave them every chance to win in his first appearance in the Flames’ net. So rather than engage in hand-wringing about what the Flames should be doing at their backup position for the next while, it’s probably more prudent to instead look at the upcoming schedule and forecast when the best times for Cooley to spell off starter Dustin Wolf over the next while.

The next set of back-to-back games for the Flames is Nov. 1 in Nashville and Nov. 2 in Philadelphia. Odds are the Flames will split those two games between Wolf and Cooley. There are seven games between now and then: Oct. 18 at Vegas, Oct. 20 vs. Winnipeg, Oct. 22 vs. Montreal, Oct. 24 at Winnipeg, Oct. 26 vs. the NY Rangers, Oct. 28 at Toronto and Oct. 30 at Ottawa.

Typically, we would look at past performances from the two netminders to determine who would be the right fit for each game. But half of that is irrelevant here, since Cooley has never played any of those teams in the NHL. So instead, here are Wolf’s past performances against these six clubs:

Traditionally, the Flames have trended towards giving their backup goalie road games, all things being equal.

If it were up to us, here’s how we would handle the goaltenders. Wolf would start in Vegas and in the two home games against Winnipeg and Montreal. Cooley would get the game in Winnipeg. Wolf would then start at home against the Rangers. Depending on how each goaltender is feeling at that point – primarily how Wolf is feeling about his game – then each goaltender would get one of the games in Ontario. We would lean towards Wolf getting Toronto and Cooley getting Ottawa.

Using this scheme, each goaltender would have some recent work heading into the early November back-to-back set, and so nobody would be thrown in cold at the end of that four game road trip.

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