{"id":362456,"date":"2025-12-21T11:52:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T11:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/362456\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T11:52:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T11:52:07","slug":"mikael-backlund-scores-twice-calgary-flames-beat-vegas-golden-knights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/362456\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikael Backlund scores twice, Calgary Flames beat Vegas Golden Knights"},"content":{"rendered":"

CALGARY \u2014 Mikael Backlund<\/a> scored twice to spur the Calgary Flames<\/a> to a 6-3 win over the visiting Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Joel Farabee<\/a>, with a short-handed goal, Ryan Lomberg<\/a>, Adam Klapka<\/a> and Jonathan Huberdeau<\/a>, with an empty-netter, also scored for the Flames (15-17-4) who improved to 7-1-1 in their last nine games at the Saddledome.<\/p>\n

Connor Zary<\/a> and defenceman MacKenzie Weegar<\/a> each had three assists. Goalie Devin Cooley<\/a> made 34 saves for the win.<\/p>\n

Reilly Smith<\/a>, Kaedan Korczak<\/a> and Mark Stone<\/a> scored for the Golden Knights (16-7-10) who suffered their first regulation loss in December. Akira Schmid<\/a> stopped 20 shots in a losing cause.<\/p>\n

Stone batted a Noah Hanifin<\/a> shot off the backboards off Cooley and in for a power-play goal at 14:34 of the third period.<\/p>\n

Korczak generated a second goal for Vegas with a quick wrist shot from the faceoff circle that beat Cooley far side at 14:34 of the second.<\/p>\n

But Calgary led 5-1 at 12:21 on Farabee\u2019s third short-handed goal this season. <\/p>\n

Backlund collected his second of the game at 8:38 by shovelling his own rebound by Schmid off a feed from Weegar, who earned his 200th career assist.<\/p>\n

Lomberg made it 3-1 for the hosts at 15:45 of the first period on a two-on-none breakaway with Zary. Lomberg, who scored his second goal in three games, then fought Jeremy Lauzon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Calgary held an early two-goal lead when Smith, coming off the bench, converted a breakaway to halve the deficit at 10:03.<\/p>\n

Kuznetsov\u2019s shot from the point deflected off the foot of six-foot-seven Klapka providing net-front traffic for Calgary\u2019s second goal of the game at 8:42. <\/p>\n

Backlund collected a defensive-zone turnover and finished a rush with Blake Coleman<\/a> and Zary by batting the puck over Schmid at 3:54.<\/p>\n

TAKEAWAYS <\/p>\n

Flames: Sixth short-handed goal this season tied the Flames with the Anaheim Ducks<\/a> and Los Angeles Kings<\/a> for the most this season. Backlund recorded the 23rd multi-goal game of his career.<\/p>\n

Golden Knights: Minus forward Jack Eichel<\/a> (illness) and defenceman Shea Theodore<\/a> (upper body). Ivan Barbashev<\/a> shifted to centre between Mitch Marner and Braeden Bowman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

KEY MOMENT<\/p>\n

Farabee lugged the puck zone-to-zone, cut in front of the net to change the angle of his shot and put his shot off the post and in for a short-handed goal, and Calgary\u2019s fifth of the game. He\u2019s tied with four players, including teammate Blake Coleman<\/a>, for the most short-handed goals this season at three.<\/p>\n

KEY STAT <\/p>\n

Backlund\u2019s 47th career game-opening goal tied Theo Fleury for the second most in Flames history behind Jarome Iginla<\/a> (93).<\/p>\n

UP NEXT<\/p>\n

Golden Knights: Host the San Jose Sharks<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Flames: Visit the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 20, 2025.<\/p>\n

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CALGARY \u2014 Mikael Backlund scored twice to spur the Calgary Flames to a 6-3 win over the visiting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-362456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}