Goals still elusive, but Flames find right formula in 2-0 win over Sharks

CALGARY — The snake-bitten Calgary Flames landed on a formula for winning games when scoring is an uphill climb.

The Flames took care of defence and one aspect of special teams while goalie Dustin Wolf rose to the challenge when required in Thursday’s 2-0 win over the San Jose Sharks.

Calgary (5-12-2) halted a three-game slide and doused the Sharks (8-7-3), who rode a four-game win streak into the Saddledome.

More importantly for the Flames, ranked last in the NHL and averaging 2.1 goals per game, the victory reinforced they could dig themselves out of their current hole if they take care of both ends of the ice until the final buzzer.

“It’s not like we’re going to see ourselves in a lot of 6-5, 6-4 games,” head coach Ryan Huska said. “We have to be content and OK with winning games 2-1, 2-0, whatever the case may be. If you do things the right way without the puck, your chances are going to come.”

Calgary held the NHL’s top road power play scoreless on two chances, but its own man advantage remained anemic at 0-for-3 in the game and 0-for-16 in seven games.

The Flames outshot the visitors 13-1 and 27-6 over two periods, but Blake Coleman scored the game’s only goal over 59 minutes before Samuel Honzek added an empty-netter.

Calgary fired 78 shots at San Jose’s net with 36 getting through to Yaroslav Askarov.

A lot of fruitless firepower was a trend carrying over from a 3-2 loss in St. Louis two nights earlier when Calgary outshot the Blues 16-7 in the third period and once again couldn’t score.

But patience and persistence in the offensive zone Thursday complemented responsible defence and timely goaltending in Wolf’s 16-save shutout.

“We had the shot volume again. We had some really good chances again tonight,” Huska said. “We could have been up more than just the one goal in tonight’s game, especially the first couple periods.

“When the guys aren’t so tight on their sticks, when they’re not forcing it as much as we have over the last little while, it’ll come. That side will come. You have to make sure the other side’s taken care of first.”

Captain Mikael Backlund, Coleman and Honzek were the forward line assigned to containing Sharks leading scorer Macklin Celebrini. They held the 19-year-old off the scoresheet with big help from Wolf in the third period, when Celebrini put four quality shots on Calgary’s goalie.

Coleman produced the game’s most consequential goal, and his team-leading seventh of the season, off a Sharks turnover in their own end early in the second period.

“It was a good 60. The buy-in was really high,” Coleman said. “Too many games we’ve had 45 really good minutes, we’ve kind of lapsed for five to 10 minutes at different points of the game and it’s cost us in a big way, because they score one or two and we’re not able to make up the difference right now.

“I didn’t think our creativity was lacking. We’re starting to make plays with the puck on entries and things like that. The more you do that, the more pucks will start to fall.

“Confidence is a really scary thing in both directions. The more that you can just scrape together wins, the more it just builds and builds and you look a lot better.”

The NHL season wasn’t a quarter old, but hockey pundits were already talking before Thursday’s game about the possibility of Calgary staying last and picking Gavin McKenna first overall in the 2026 draft.

But Coleman believes the Flames have time to climb out of their lowly position.

“A win is great,” Coleman said. “We know that one win isn’t going to do anything in this room right now. I would expect our focus to shift very quickly.

“With this condensed schedule, we’ve got opportunities to string together two, three, four, five wins and quickly change our pole position. It’s going to take a lot of those types of games to get us off the ground, but I expect once momentum gets going, this type of schedule can really benefit you.”

The Flames host the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2025.