{"id":610499,"date":"2026-04-17T15:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/610499\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T15:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:51:13","slug":"netminder-arsenii-sergeev-shines-in-his-nhl-debut-as-flames-close-out-2025-26-with-a-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/610499\/","title":{"rendered":"Netminder Arsenii Sergeev shines in his NHL debut as Flames close out 2025-26 with a win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Netminder Arsenii Sergeev shines in his NHL debut as Flames close out 2025-26 with a win<\/p>\n<p>The Calgary Flames came into the final game of their season with only draft lottery positioning at stake.<\/p>\n<p>With a rookie netminder between the pipes, playing on pretty short notice due to an illness to Devin Cooley, the Flames did what they\u2019ve done for much of the season: not score a ton of goals, get good goaltending, and play their usual smart, structured game. Facing a playoff-bound Los Angeles Kings club that found out midway through the contest that the game would have no standings impact for them, <a class=\"text-accent\" href=\"https:\/\/flamesnation.ca\/news\/instant-reaction-flames-close-out-2025-26-with-a-sharp-win-over-kings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Flames skated to a 3-1 victory to conclude their regular season<\/a>.The big story of the game was the impressive performance by Arsenii Sergeev, <a class=\"text-accent\" href=\"https:\/\/flamesnation.ca\/news\/flames-recall-goalie-arsenii-sergeev-from-ahls-calgary-wranglers-on-emergency-basis-due-to-devin-cooley-illness\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">up on an emergency recall<\/a> and making his first-ever NHL appearance \u2013 albeit in a building where he\u2019s played quite a bit of hockey for the American Hockey League\u2019s Calgary Wranglers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was really good,\u201d said head coach Ryan Huska. \u201cHappy for him. Quite the moment for him. Showed up this morning with really not knowing what was going on or what was happening and went from this maybe you might skate this morning to maybe you might back up to you\u2019re gonna start. So pretty excited young man. I think he did a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sergeev made 27 stops on 28 shots to earn his first NHL victory in his first NHL appearance. Coincidentally, his NHL debut came about a year after he led the Penn State Nittany Lions to the NCAA\u2019s Frozen Four and three years after Dustin Wolf stood on his head in his Game 82 debut victory over the San Jose Sharks.<\/p>\n<p>Huska wasn\u2019t surprised that Sergeev had a strong debut.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWell you know, goalies are funny,\u201d said Huska. \u201cTheir first games are always usually really good ones. I think in the American League\u2019s first he made 52 saves. So, you kind of had a feeling that he was going to have a good night tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sergeev made a bunch of highlight reel stops against the Kings, but the best of the bunch was probably midway through the second period, where he managed to get a stick on a shot from Trevor Moore after the puck rebounded off the end-boards.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh, my God, I get so lucky, too,\u201d said Sergeev. \u201cThere was a couple moments where it was like empty net, and I was like, \u2018oh, my God, oh, my God, please don\u2019t score.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"tweet-body_root__o7v_S\" lang=\"en\" dir=\"auto\">A look at Arsenii Sergeev&#8217;s night. He&#8217;s been incredible. <\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfa5: Sportsnet | <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/Flames\" class=\"tweet-link_root__sXUw7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">#Flames<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"tweet-body_root__o7v_S\" lang=\"en\" dir=\"auto\">Former Penn State hockey goalie Arsenii Sergeev is having himself an NHL debut. <\/p>\n<p>Sergeev won\u2019t have long to relish his first NHL victory, as he\u2019s headed to Colorado to join the Wranglers for the final two games of their season.<\/p>\n<p>Farabee hits a milestone<\/p>\n<p>The Flames entered the game with two players having scored 20 goals on the season, as Morgan Frost had 21 and Blake Coleman got to 20 against Colorado on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p>Well, Joel Farabee entered the game with 19 goals on the campaign and managed to get his 20th\u2026 though he waited until the literal last minute of the season to pot an empty-netter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"tweet-body_root__o7v_S\" lang=\"en\" dir=\"auto\">\ud83d\udd25FLAMES GOAL\ud83d\udd25<\/p>\n<p>Joel Farabee scores his 20th goal of the season! He scores 20 for the third time in his career! <\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfa5: Sportsnet | <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/Flames\" class=\"tweet-link_root__sXUw7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">#Flames<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you saw our whole bench, everybody was leaning to try to get it to roll in,\u201d chuckled Huska. \u201cSo that\u2019s, again, you have a good group of people and they want to see teammates have success. And that\u2019s a milestone for a lot of guys. To get 20 goals in the NHL is a pretty good thing. It\u2019s nice to see Morgan get there. This year it\u2019s nice to see Joel get through. This year it\u2019s nice to see Blake get there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Respect for Anze Kopitar<\/p>\n<p>Finally, this was the 1,521th \u2013 and final \u2013 regular season game for Kings captain Anze Kopitar. He received a tribute video during a first period media timeout, then following the game the Flames\u2019 entire bench \u2013 and several players who weren\u2019t even dressed for the game \u2013 came out to shake Kopitar\u2019s hand to pay their respects to a legendary player.<\/p>\n<p>Huska wasn\u2019t surprised to see his team be so respectful to Kopitar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, not at all,\u201d said Huska. \u201cI mean, they get it. That\u2019s the one beauty thing about hockey players. They all understand and they get it when someone\u2019s had a career like he has. They look at him as kind of one of their role models too for a lot of the younger guys that we have on our team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Kings are off to the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Flames are off to the off-season.<\/p>\n<p>This article is a\u00a0presentation\u00a0of Prairie\u00a0Toyota Dealers<a class=\"text-accent\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shoptoyota.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2560\" height=\"922\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:100%;height:auto;object-fit:cover;object-position:top;background-size:cover;background-position:top;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg' viewBox='0 0 2560 922'%3E%3Cfilter id='b' color-interpolation-filters='sRGB'%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3CfeColorMatrix values='1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 100 -1' result='s'\/%3E%3CfeFlood x='0' y='0' width='100%25' height='100%25'\/%3E%3CfeComposite operator='out' in='s'\/%3E%3CfeComposite in2='SourceGraphic'\/%3E%3CfeGaussianBlur stdDeviation='20'\/%3E%3C\/filter%3E%3Cimage width='100%25' height='100%25' x='0' y='0' preserveAspectRatio='none' style='filter: url(%23b);' href='data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAYAAAAfFcSJAAAADUlEQVR42mPMyc35DwAE2AJG6zh9WgAAAABJRU5ErkJggg=='\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E&quot;)\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776441073_733_image.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Toyota Tacoma is the ultimate power play. Its standard i-FORCE engine delivers more power than ever and a towing capacity of up to 6,400 lbs. It helps you take on challenging landscapes with confidence with its available Panoramic Multi-Terrain View Monitor that provides a live, underfloor view of the terrain your tackling. It even makes loading and unloading gear effortless with its available Power Liftgate. Whether it\u2019s for early morning practice or weekend away games, the Tacoma is a teammate you can rely on. Visit your local Prairie Toyota dealer during Red Tag Days for limited-time offers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Netminder Arsenii Sergeev shines in his NHL debut as Flames close out 2025-26 with a win The Calgary&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-610499","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\/610499","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=610499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}