{"id":546611,"date":"2026-03-19T11:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T11:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/546611\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T11:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T11:07:13","slug":"flames-undeterred-by-overturned-goals-in-bizarre-yet-spirited-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/546611\/","title":{"rendered":"Flames undeterred by overturned goals in bizarre yet spirited win"},"content":{"rendered":"

CALGARY \u2014 The post-game smile on Connor Zary<\/a>\u2019s face turned into a chuckle pretty quickly.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWe’ve all been a part of a disallowed goal,\u201d said the Calgary Flames<\/a> forward, following a shockingly memorable evening between two bottom-feeders.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut to have three straight\u2026 it was pretty nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three goals wiped out by coach challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three celebrations cut short.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Three times the Flames looked up at the scoreboard to see pretty passing plays all negated by St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery and his video coach.<\/p>\n

Once is annoying. Twice is absurd. Three times? As Zary put it, \u201cyou just have to laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n

And laugh they did \u2014 on the bench, in the crease, and afterward in a dressing room that somehow stayed loose through one of the strangest nights in recent Flames lore.<\/p>\n

It was the first time since March 2023 that any NHL team successfully erased three goals in a single game, matching a feat only ever achieved by Jay Woodcroft\u2019s Oilers that night.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This time, it was Montgomery using the rulebook to carve up the Flames\u2019 best moments by inches, frames, and shoulder-height measurements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just kind of laughing in my crease,\u201d said goalie Devin Cooley<\/a>, whose 25 saves played a big role in helping the Flames overcome the trio of gut-punches in a 2-1 shootout win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn’t believe it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Flames didn\u2019t just lose three goals \u2014 they lost three\u00a0beauties.<\/p>\n

And yet, the most remarkable part of the night wasn\u2019t the officiating oddity. It was how little it rattled an undermanned Calgary team playing out the string with pride, unity, and a whole lot of pushback in a feisty, entertaining affair.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do have good character, we have good people,\u201d Flames coach Ryan Huska said afterward.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stayed with it even though the three were taken back, and we stood up for one another as well too, which was maybe the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first erasure came at 12:39 of the opening period, when Kevin Bahl\u2019s valiant attempt to hold a clearing pass in the offensive zone was followed by a dandy fake shot and slick feed to Martin Pospisil that looked to put the hosts up 2\u20130.<\/p>\n

Alas, replay showed the puck drifting inches outside the zone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then came Zary\u2019s own high\u2011stick sequence with 2:38 left in the first. His hands were magic on the play, batting the puck out of the air twice, but one touch was just above shoulder height before Yegor Sharangovich<\/a> buried it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were kind of joking, \u2018I think it was under (6-foot-5 defenceman Colton) Parayko\u2019s shoulder, right?\u2019\u201d laughed Zary.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was pretty high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Midway through the second, Joel Farabee<\/a> jumped the zone a hair early before finishing a gorgeous Mikael Backlund pass through two defenders. Offside again, by an inch. Another beauty wiped away.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce the third one goes, everyone just looked at each other, like, \u2018are we trying to break a record here or something?\u2019\u201d Zary chuckled.<\/p>\n

The Flames even joked they\u2019d show the clips the next day and \u201cpretend that they counted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to review the rules I guess,\u201d joked Huska.<\/p>\n

\"3232 Thoughts: The Podcast<\/p>\n

Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.<\/p>\n

Latest episode<\/a><\/p>\n

It was the kind of game Flames fans have been craving down the stretch: spirited, entertaining, full of offence (even if three didn\u2019t count) and, as it turned out, historic.<\/p>\n

The win wasn\u2019t ideal in their quest to land first pick in the draft lottery, but it was a just reward for a team that deserved it. Fans got their money\u2019s worth too.<\/p>\n

There were endless scrums in a game that intensified after Blake Coleman took a knee from Tyler Tucker. Everyone was game to step up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the kids \u2014 Zayne Parekh, Hunter Brzustewicz and Matvei Gridin<\/a> \u2014 got valuable overtime reps.<\/p>\n

Zary, meanwhile, had one of his best nights of the season. His first-period goal, the one that\u00a0did survive review, snapped a 10-game drought.<\/p>\n

Cooley was excellent again, highlighted by a slick poke-check in overtime that kept the Flames alive long enough for Victor Olofsson and Gridin to generate Grade\u2011A chances.<\/p>\n

Farabee\u2019s contributions also included a nifty shootout snipe, which was followed by Gridin punctuating the evening in dramatic fashion with a gorgeous roof\u2011job of his own over Joel Hofer\u2019s glove.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The confidence of the young first rounder continues to grow, as the coach confirmed afterwards the 20-year-old revelation gave the coach the hairy-eyeball on the bench in the shootout, imploring him to give him a shot.<\/p>\n

Montgomery, mercifully, couldn\u2019t challenge those.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CALGARY \u2014 The post-game smile on Connor Zary\u2019s face turned into a chuckle pretty quickly. \u00a0\u201cWe’ve all been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-546611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}