![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1792936331_180_indicator-big.gif\")
<\/p>\nAn example of that was Matvei Gridin\u2019s goal at 18:30 of the second period, the club\u2019s second power-play goal of the period that was set up by Farabee.<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m supposed to be on the half wall, but I moved to the bumper spot and found the open ice,\u201d said Gridin, who is one of two 20-year-olds on the top unit. The other is defenceman Zayne Parekh.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s positionless because you have to be aware that every team\u2019s pressuring harder, and you have to have people in position to break that pressure,\u201d said Calgary coach Ryan Huska. \u201cSo it\u2019s often a short little pass that will do that for you and that means people are wherever they have to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another new face is defenceman Simon Nemec, acquired in the off-season from the New Jersey Devils. He\u2019s running the second unit.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked about it at the beginning of the year that our power play was going to be better because we have two legitimate guys in the back end that are power-play quarterbacks, and they help it a massive amount,\u201d said Huska. \u201cThey\u2019re the guys that really run a power play up top. So I think both of them have done a really good job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parekh\u2019s game-winner, breaking a 1-1 tie at 8:38 of the second, was also scored on the power play.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a rover, so at times he\u2019s going to move around and end up down along the goal line. So that means a Joel Farabee, who\u2019s usually a net front guy, is going to be on the top of the blue line,\u201d said Huska.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt creates some uneasy moments for coaches when they\u2019re moving around like that, but they\u2019re starting to figure out how to work off of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parekh says everybody is chipping in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not a guy that\u2019s going to take over. You don\u2019t have those (Nathan) MacKinnons or (Connor) McDavids, but we\u2019re all moving pucks in unison, and whoever scores, we\u2019re happy for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Communication has been another key.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spend a lot of time talking at intermission,\u201d Farabee said. \u201cThat\u2019s awesome when you have a bunch of young guys that are really committed to scoring and trying to find little plays.\u201d<\/p>\n
That movement and the success that has followed has the man-advantage units feeling good.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re moving the puck quick right now, and as with everything, when the power play is scoring and things are going their way, they start feeling really good about when they\u2019re on the ice,\u201d said Huska. \u201cThey know they can be difference makers, and that\u2019s the phase they\u2019re in right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another one of the changes this season is assistant coach Dave Lowry taking over control of the man-advantage from Cail MacLean, who ran it last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of Dave\u2019s things that he\u2019s worked on with them is that he wants them to think about scoring all the time, like off faceoffs, off entries,\u201d said Huska. \u201cThey are expected to score and I think they\u2019re starting to get that mindset as a group of five.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another factor Saturday was key faceoff wins to start off both power plays by Morgan Frost. That enabled the home team to immediately get set up.<\/p>\n
The first goal took only 21 seconds. The second goal came 19 seconds into the power play.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don\u2019t win that first faceoff, you run the risk of wasting 20, 30 seconds going up and down the ice, so the faceoff is really important,\u201d Huska said.<\/p>\n
After opening the season with five straight losses, Calgary has won three in a row and four of its last five. The Flames have two more stiff tests coming up with the Toronto Maple Leafs visiting the Saddledome on Monday and the Flames heading up the highway to take on the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s honestly pretty depressing when you\u2019re losing hockey games. These guys take a lot of pride in the way we play, and we want to win games,\u201d said Parekh. \u201cEveryone in this room is going to die for each other and work their tail off for each other. So we\u2019re having a lot of fun winning games right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2026.<\/p>\n
Darren Haynes, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An example of that was Matvei Gridin\u2019s goal at 18:30 of the second period, the club\u2019s second power-play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":945763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":["post-945762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945762","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=945762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}