The Ducks kept pressing, and with 1:34 left in regulation Cutter Gauthier blasted a one-timer past Wolf to give the visitors a 4-3 lead.

The Flames pulled Wolf for the extra attacker to hunt for the equalizer, but couldn’t muster anything else. Nikita Nesterenko added an empty-netter to make it a 5-3 Ducks win.

Why the Flames lost

The Flames were really good in the opening period, and the Ducks were pretty flat. The Ducks seemed to make some good adjustments as the second period wore on, and they did a nice job using speed and skill to disrupt the Flames. The Flames had trouble with the Ducks’ forecheck and didn’t seem able to manage the puck very well in the later stages of the game. It really felt like someone plugged the Ducks’ controller in after 20 minutes.

But if you go back and look at the Ducks’ goals, all were off Flames turnovers or coverage lapses. The Ducks were quite good in the last two periods of the game, but the Flames made mistakes at bad times.

Red Warrior

This was another good effort from Joel Farabee, so we’ll give him the nod.

Stick-taps to Zayne Parekh, though. He made some really nice plays with the puck.

Turning point

Shots were 23-10 after Anaheim switched goalies to open the second period. That move seemed to wake up the visitors.

Flames lineup

The Flames looked like this against Anaheim:

Joel Farabee – Mikael Backlund [C] – Matt Coronato
Matvei Gridin – Martin Pospisil – Ryan Strome [A]
Yegor Sharangovich – Morgan Frost – Aydar Suniev
William Stromgren – Jonathan Castagna – Adam Klapka

Joel Hanley – Simon Nemec
Jake Middleton – Zach Whitecloud [A]
Yan Kuznetsov – Zayne Parekh

Dustin Wolf started in net, backed up by Devin Cooley. The healthy extras were Joel Hanley and Maxim Tsyplakov. Jonathan Huberdeau, Sam Honzek, Brennan Othmann and Kevin Bahl missed the game due to injury. Bahl was a late scratch, replaced by Hanley.

This and that

The Flames debuted their snazzy Hometown Remix jerseys for this game.

The goal song for this game was The Black Keys’ 2011 hit “Gold on the Ceiling.” Because the Flaming C on the Hometown Remix jerseys is gold and has a sublimated grid pattern mimicking the Saddledome’s ceiling.

Joel Hanley’s goal was his first since Apr. 5, 2025. Hanley played 74 games between goals, and 33 different Flames scored at least once between Hanley goals.

After Burner

Join Mike Gould and Robert Munnich right after the game for After Burner!