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Instant Reaction: Flames overwhelmed by Avalanche
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Photo credit: Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images
Ryan Pike
Mar 30, 2026, 23:24 EDT
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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! 
On Saturday night, the Calgary Flames put a drubbing on the National Hockey League’s worst club, the Vancouver Canucks. On Monday night, the Flames visited the NHL’s best club, the Colorado Avalanche. And the shoe was on the other foot, as they say.
The Flames allowed five first period goals and saw netminder Dustin Wolf pulled less than 10 minutes into the proceedings en route to a 9-2 loss to the powerhouse Avalanche to kick off a six game road trip.

The rundown

The Avalanche were all over the Flames early on, and 2:31 into the first period, they beat Dustin Wolf. The Avalanche had a couple scoring chances as the Flames scrambled to defend in their own zone, ending with Jack Drury making a smart play off a rebound by tossing the puck on net from just below the goal line, bonking it in off of Wolf. The Avalanche were up 1-0.
Brayden Pachal was called for an unsportsmanlike conduct minor for crunching Drury along the boards after a whistle. Shortly after that, Blake Coleman was called for slashing, giving Colorado 1:21 of five-on-three power play time.
On the five-on-three, Nazem Kadri buried a feed from Martin Necas to Wolf’s left to give the Avalanche a 2-0 lead.
Still on a five-on-four power play, Wolf made a stop on the first Avalanche chance, but the puck blooped over to Kadri, standing basically where he was a minute earlier, and he again fired the puck past Wolf to give the Avalanche a 3-0 lead.
A little later, the Avalanche kept pressing. Brock Nelson made a nice pass after a zone entry to send Gabriel Landeskog in all alone against Wolf. Wolf made the initial stop but Landeskog poked in the rebound to give Colorado a 4-0 lead.
Dustin Wolf was pulled from this game after allowing four goals on 16 shots. Devin Cooley came into the game in relief.
And late in the period, Colorado scored again. This time, Parker Kelly made a nice redirect of a shot from Cale Makar that ricocheted past Cooley to give the Avalanche a 5-0 lead.
First period shots were 26-8 Avalanche.
Perhaps it was the Avalanche sitting back after putting five on the Flames in the opening frame, but the Flames were a lot more aggressive and effective in the second period.
The Flames got rewarded early in the period, as John Beecher made a nice play, chasing after a puck bouncing around in the Colorado zone, corralling it, and then throwing it on net. Brennan Othmann chipped the puck past Scott Wedgewood to get the Flames on the board – and give Othmann his first NHL goal as a Flame – to cut Colorado’s lead to 5-1.
But the Avalanche answered back late in the second period. With Zach Whitecloud in the box for tripping, Nathan MacKinnon blasted a one-timer past Cooley – just inside the far post as Cooley was moving left to right – to give the home side a 6-1 lead.
Second period shots were 8-7 Flames.
Midway through the third period, the Avalanche added a couple quick goals to add insult to injury.
First, Cooley made a couple saves off a flurry of rapid Avalanche chances in front, but Colorado kept at it and Necas was left wide-open in front as the Flames defence scrambled around the zone, and Necas put the puck under Cooley’s arm to go up 7-1.
A bit later, the Flames were caught up ice trying to generate some chances. The play went the other way and Sam Malinski, pinching, went in on Cooley and tucked the puck past the netminder to go up 8-1.
The Flames got one back, though. The third line executed nicely off the rush, with Yegor Sharangovich getting to a rebound first and sending a pass back to the slot area for Ryan Strome, who put the puck past Wedgewood to cut Colorado’s lead to 8-2.
The Flames once again got caught up ice trying to generate offence. Play went the other way and Cooley made a couple nice saves on a flurry of chances but, once again, the Avalanche got a goal off a second effort, with Artturi Lehkonen depositing the puck past Cooley from beside the blue paint to give the Avalanche a 9-2 lead.
That’s how it ended.

Why the Flames lost

The Flames were utterly overwhelmed by the Avalanche in the first period. It was probably a bit of whiplash going from playing the NHL’s worst team in Vancouver on Saturday to playing its best team in Colorado on Monday. They definitely got a bit better as the game wore on, but the Flames were incredibly loose defensively early on.

Red Warrior

We’re going to default to Mikael Backlund. Yeah, he was on for two of Colorado’s power play goals, but he was even in an evening where the Flames were out-scored 6-2 at five-on-five.

Turning point

The Flames allowed a pair of power play goals by Nazem Kadri in the first period, scored just 1:06 apart. That really gave the home team a stranglehold on this hockey game.

This and that

Dustin Wolf started in net. John Beecher subbed in on the fourth line for Tyson Gross. Per Sportsnet’s Derek Wills, Kevin Bahl was a bit under the weather and wasn’t part of morning skate, but he was good enough to play. (Yan Kuznetsov is also, per Wills, good to go.)
Wolf’s 9:19 outing is the second-shortest of his NHL career, only surpassed by a 5:52 game in November in Tampa Bay where he allowed three goals on four shots. Like this game, it was more a product of his team being pretty porous defensively than Wolf’s performance.

After Burner

Join Cami Kepke and myself right after the game for After Burner!

Up next

The Flames (31-35-8) are back in action on Thursday night when they visit Rasmus Andersson and the Vegas Golden Knights.

PRESENTED BY STAKE

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