Four games into the Calgary Flames’ homestand, you could probably find nitpicks about each of their first four wins.

Yeah, two of their wins came against the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning, who each played the night before in Edmonton and had to travel. They were “scheduled wins,” and the Flames capitalized on them.

Yeah, the other two of their wins came against inconsistent teams from St. Louis and Los Angeles, both flailing around below the playoff cutline. The Flames managed to take advantage of miscues by two teams that have been prone to them throughout the season.

But on Thursday night, the Flames welcomed a very good Anaheim Ducks team to town. Both teams were equally rested – the Flames had played on Tuesday and won, as did the Ducks. The Flames entered the game on a winning streak, as did the Ducks. The big difference was that the Ducks entered the game in first place in the Pacific Division, while the Flames were far from that position.

So in the grand scheme of things, it was pretty impressive that the Flames went toe-to-toe with the Ducks in a 3-2 overtime loss on Thursday night. The Flames never trailed during the game, leading 1-0 and 2-1 at points, but each time the Ducks found a way to tie the game. But the Flames could’ve had even bigger cushions: they had a three-on-zero rush early that resulted in no scoring chance, and both Matvei Gridin and Yegor Sharangovich had Ducks netminder Ville Husso beat but hit iron instead of the net.

“It was a slow start, but in the second period we played good and in the third it was back and forth,” said Gridin.

The two plays that defined the game were a third period goal by Gridin that briefly gave the Flames a 2-1 lead, and a bench minor for too-many-men taken in overtime when Zayne Parekh jumped onto the ice too early.

On Gridin’s goal, the Flames had a de facto man advantage after Ducks defender Pavel Mintyukov blocked a shot near his shoulder and went down in pain. The play continued, as prescribed by the NHL’s rules – “When a player is injured so that he cannot continue play or go to his bench, the play shall not be stopped until the injured player’s team has secured control of the puck” – and Gridin buried a feed from Olli Maatta past Husso.

“Yeah, like I don’t know the rules on that one, I thought they would blow it,” said Gridin. “But yeah, I feel bad for a guy, he’s Russian too, I guess… So it’s good, like not a great feeling type of goal, but that’s good, I score, so yeah, great sequence by us on the goal.”

The Ducks forced overtime with a late power play goal, but the Flames carried play for much of extra time. They seemed like they had a decent amount of momentum, until the officials blew down play with 56.4 remaining in overtime and levied a too-many-men bench minor to the Flames, as Parekh had jumped onto the ice before Zach Whitecloud reached the bench.

Flames head coach Ryan Huska didn’t seem terribly happy with the lapse when speaking to the media post-game.

“No, that’s totally on us,” said Huska. “Whether you’re a young guy or a old guy, the referees made the right call there. That’s a bad change.”

Mikael Granlund scored on the power play with one second remaining in overtime to win the game and complete his hat trick.

The Flames dropped to 30-34-8 on the season and 4-0-1 on their current homestand. While fans hoping for a draft lottery win for the Flames are likely cringing at them earning nine of a possible 10 points recently, the Flames have deserved their wins, and are inexplicably playing some of their best hockey of the season.

After a trade deadline period where they jettisoned several highly-talented veteran players.

Hockey’s very weird sometimes.

The Flames conclude their homestand on Saturday night when they welcome the league’s worst team, the Vancouver Canucks, to town.