{"id":952936,"date":"2026-10-31T08:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T08:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/952936\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T08:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T08:40:09","slug":"klapkas-heavyweight-fight-sets-tone-in-flames-win-over-kraken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/952936\/","title":{"rendered":"Klapka’s heavyweight fight sets tone in Flames’ win over Kraken"},"content":{"rendered":"

CALGARY \u2013 Shortly after participating in a centre ice scrap featuring 477 pounds of fury and almost 14 feet in height, Curtis Douglas had a message for Adam Klapka<\/a>:<\/p>\n

At the tail end of their heaviest of heavyweight tilts, Douglas threw a pair of ill-advised cheap shots at a prone Klapka, who had ended the tilt seconds earlier with a knockdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe apologized to me (in) the penalty box after for the late punches, but I think it\u2019s fine,\u201d said Klapka, whose six-foot-eight, 235-pound frame betrays the fact he may be one of the nicest men in hockey.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much going on, and he was just thinking we were still going. We got a power play, and we scored, so it was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a game that had been preceded by plenty of chatter over his team\u2019s recent failure to respond to a pair of crease crashes by Colton Dach that injured Devin Cooley and endangered Dustin Wolf<\/a>, Klapka\u2019s triumph over Seattle\u2019s six-foot-nine behemoth set the tone for a 6-2 win.<\/p>\n

Douglas\u2019s indiscretion did indeed lead to an early power play goal that kickstarted a night in which Matt Coronato had a career-high four points, Joel Farabee<\/a> had three, Matvei Gridin<\/a> and Morgan Frost had two apiece and Aydar Suniev scored once.<\/p>\n

But while a scoring binge by the youngsters, Dustin Wolf\u2019s bounce-back return, and a Farabee goal that sent two lucky fans to Vegas were all feel-good stories, it was a pair of messages sent by Klapka that made up the most important stories of the night.<\/p>\n

Then came the declaration.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to say something about it,\u201d said Klapka of pre-game criticism suggesting someone \u2014 anyone \u2014 needed to make Dach pay for his recklessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got a power play (on the first crease crash on Cooley).<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in the days probably something would happen, and I understand it, but at this time the power play is so good and can help the team too much. I think it was a smart decision from all of the guys.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that Middsy (Jake Middleton) asked him three times (to fight), and I asked him too, but he didn\u2019t want to. I know people blame us that we didn\u2019t do anything, but it\u2019s kind of hard to do when the guy doesn\u2019t want to do anything. I feel like we did everything we could.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWe protect each other on the ice and we care about each other, but in that situation I think the guys did the right decision to not do anything stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defending his teammates on and off the ice.<\/p>\n

A big part of Klapka\u2019s learning curve as a valuable fourth-line utility man has been learning how and when to fight.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d heard the criticism this week, and he also heard Douglas asking early for a dance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of knew he was going to come, so I said, \u2018let\u2019s do it in the middle of the ice,\u2019\u201d smiled Klapka, who enlisted the services of a towering former MMA fighter as part of his summer training bouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good fight, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAwesome fight,\u201d said the Flames\u2019 leading scorer, whose goal during the Minute to Win it promotion sent a British couple to Vegas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked before the game about how we wanted to bring guys into the fight, and to square off with another guy that big and is a tough guy is not an easy job.\u00a0\u00a0For him to do that got us going \u2013 a lot of credit to him.\u201d
Ryan Huska felt his team was sluggish off the start, and gave Klapka kudos for an energy boost that ultimately saw his team break a 1-1 first period tie with three second period goals in five minutes.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAdam kind of took it upon himself and tried to pull the guys into the game, and I think that\u2019s important,\u201d said Huska, whose club has won five straight home games.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had energy in the first period when not a lot of guys did, and I think he helped push the rest of the team forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

He set the stage for a long list of teammates to pepper the scoresheet, while he accrued even more respect amongst peers who know he tried his best to step up in Edmonton.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it\u2019s not about scoring goals and making points,\u201d smiled Klapka, who sits second in the league with 37 penalty minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cSomething I can help with like this, I take it 100 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CALGARY \u2013 Shortly after participating in a centre ice scrap featuring 477 pounds of fury and almost 14…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-952936","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\/952936","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=952936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}