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Instant Reaction: Flames celebrate Kadri’s 1,000th game with victory over Columbus
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Photo credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images
Ryan Pike
Nov 6, 2025, 00:20 ESTUpdated: Nov 6, 2025, 00:54 EST
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Welcome to Instant Reaction, where we give you our instant reaction to tonight’s Calgary Flames game and ask our readers to do the same in the comments section below!
The Calgary Flames returned home after a 1-2-1 road trip looking to build some momentum, or at least continue some from Sunday’s dull win over Philadelphia. Well, mission accomplished.
With Nazem Kadri celebrating his 1,000th NHL game, the Flames played one of their strongest outings of the season. They scored early, scored often, and led for virtually the entirety of a 5-1 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets.

The rundown

The Flames started this game with jump and just 56 seconds in they opened the scoring. The Flames got the puck into Columbus’ zone and started cycling it, eventually resulting in a Jonathan Huberdeau wrist shot from the point getting deflected by Morgan Frost past Jet Greaves into the Jackets’ net to make it 1-0 Flames.
36 seconds later, the Flames got another one. The Flames, once again, got into the Columbus zone and pressed, rattling off a few scoring chances. Blake Coleman’s shot, the third or fourth chance of the sequence, beat Greaves to make it 2-0 Flames.
The Flames led in shots by 5-0 and 7-2 margins at various points of the first period.
But the Blue Jackets got one back, shorthanded. The Flames gave up a shorthanded breakaway to Sean Monahan, but Dustin Wolf made a big save. But later on the same power play, a Joel Farabee pass was intercepted in the offensive zone, leading to a rush the other way. Boone Jenner made a nice pass to spring Kirill Marchenko on a breakaway and he beat Wolf to cut Calgary’s lead to 2-1.
First period shots were 13-10 Flames. Via Natural Stat Trick, 5v5 scoring chances were 10-9 Flames and high-danger scoring chances 6-5 Flames.
The Jackets kept pressing in the second period, looking to draw even. But the Flames did a pretty decent job of minimizing quality chances against – and they got some saves.
Midway through the second, the Flames got a bit more insurance. Farabee chased down an errant puck in the neutral zone and went in on an odd-man rush with Nazem Kadri. Farabee fed Kadri, and Kadri fired the puck past Greaves to give the Flames a 3-1 lead.
A little later, the Flames added another goal. A Yan Kuznetsov pass attempt found Adam Klapka, and Klapka went in with Yegor Sharangovich on an odd-man rush. Klapka opted to shoot, beating Greaves to go up 4-1.
Second period shots were 11-7 Blue Jackets. 5v5 scoring chances were 9-5 Blue Jackets and high-danger scoring chances were 4-2 Blue Jackets.
The Flames did a good job in the third period keeping the Jackets attackers to the outside and running the clock.
Mikael Backlund added an empty-net goal in the dying moments of the game to cement a 5-1 victory.
Third period shots were 22-6 Blue Jackets. 5v5 scoring chances were 3-3 and high-danger scoring chances were 1-0 Blue Jackets.

Why the Flames won

This was sort of what we expected the Flames to look like this season. They managed the puck well. They forechecked. They got timely goals. They got timely saves. And when the Blue Jackets pressed midway through this game, they did a pretty effective job at making sure that they didn’t give up quality looks.
The Jackets looked pretty deflated for much of this game and weren’t all that good. But a good deal of that was the Flames not allowing them to be all that good.

Red Warrior

We’re sentimentalists here, so we’ll go with Kadri. Milestone aside, he was really effective in this one – face-off results aside.
But this was the type of game where everyone was pulling on the rope in the same direction.

Turning point

The Flames scored twice in the first 92 seconds of this game, the 10th-fastest pair of goals to open a game in franchise history. The visitors were chasing for almost the entire 60 minutes.

This and that

In addition to being Kadri’s 1,000th career NHL game, this game featured Yan Kuznetsov’s first NHL point (an assist) on Klapka’s goal.

After Burner

Join Mike Gould and Kent Wilson right after the game for After Burner!

Up next

The Flames (4-9-2) are back in action on Friday night when they host the Chicago Blackhawks.

This article is brought to you by Platinum Mitsubishi

This article is a Presentation of Platinum Mitsubishi, family owned and operated by lifelong Calgarians. Home of the best warranty in the business with ten year warranties available. Check out the showroom at 2720 Barlow Trail NE or online at www.mitsu.ca

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