The Calgary Flames played a pretty good hockey game on Thursday evening. They’ve played a few lately. On several occasions they’ve played pretty well and found ways to lose. But man, the San Jose Sharks did their best to make life easy for the Flames on Thursday night when the visited the Scotiabank Saddledome.

The Flames were the better team, by a fair margin, and managed to make a single goal seem like an insurmountable lead en route to a 2-0 triumph over the Sharks to snap their three game losing skid.

The Sharks just couldn’t get anything going in the first period. They had the puck sometimes, but couldn’t do very much with it. The first Sharks shot on goal did not occur until 15:45 into the first period. (That chance, a golden shorthanded opportunity for Collin Graf, was a stick save for Dustin Wolf.)

The Flames didn’t have a ton of scary-good chances, but they dominated play.

First period shots were 13-1 Flames. Via Natural Stat Trick, 5v5 scoring chances were 19-1 Flames and high-danger scoring chances were 8-0 Flames.

The Flames opened the scoring 5:46 into the second period. Sam Dickinson coughed up the puck just inside the Sharks’ blueline and an alert Blake Coleman snatched the loose puck away from the teenager, skated in and beat Sharks netminder Yaroslav Askarov. That gave the Flames a 1-0 lead.

The Sharks were a little better in the second than they were in the first, but the Flames still carried play.

Second period shots were 15-4 Flames. 5v5 scoring chances were 15-4 Flames and high-danger scoring chances were 5-2 Flames.

The Sharks generated more in the third period than they did in the rest of the game, but they couldn’t solve Dustin Wolf.

Sam Honzek scored on an empty net with 4.2 seconds left in regulation to give the Flames a 2-0 lead, and the win.

Third period shots were 10-9 Sharks.

For the vast majority of this hockey game, San Jose was really fighting it offensively. The Flames were pretty good at using sticks and positioning to disrupt whatever the Sharks were trying to do offensively, but the Sharks did their best to make it easy for them.

This game was as much the Sharks being not especially good as it was the Flames being pretty decent.

Let’s go with Dustin Wolf, who pitched a shutout.

We’ll go with Coleman’s game-winning goal in the second period.

Rory Kerins made his season debut, swapping onto Nazem Kadri’s line and bumping Yegor Sharangovich to the press box.

For awhile, it looked the Flames were going to flirt with the fewest shots they’ve allowed in a game – they’ve held a team to 12 shots on goal eight times, most recently in 2004.

Join Mike Gould and Robert Munnich right after the game for After Burner!

The Flames (5-12-2) are back in action on Saturday night when they host the Winnipeg Jets.

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