The Calgary Flames fell to the Vancouver Canucks in the shootout on Wednesday night in what was a thrilling 65 minutes of hockey at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

The primary culprit of the loss is an underwhelming third period where the Canucks out-shot the Flames 17-4. Dustin Wolf, to his credit, held the Canucks to only one goal against in the stanza, but that was enough to send the game to overtime.

With a day off before they face off against the 39-24-3 Colorado Avalanche, let's take a ride through some stats, facts, and story lines.


Can’t Do That
Connor Zary has been suspended for two games following a retaliatory cheap shot on Canucks star Elias Pettersson.

Connor Zary will have a hearing with @NHLPlayerSafety on Thursday for roughing/elbowing against Elias Pettersson pic.twitter.com/XRQeGVcCwH

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) March 13, 2025

Hey, you put the kid on the fourth line and expect him not to do fourth line things?


Now That’s Rare
Mikael Backlund left the game after playing only 2:58 of ice time. An upper body injury was cited as the reason. Here is the hit.

Backlund looked a bit awkward after going in for this hit.#Flames
📹: Sportsnet | NHL pic.twitter.com/Q20WV0Hflw

— The Win Column (@wincolumnCGY) March 13, 2025

Will Calgary’s captain miss time? It’s believed that he was already playing through injury prior to last night.

Providing Mikael misses time, Flames Head Coach Ryan Huska will have to get creative without Backlund and Zary as lineup options. How would you run it?

Huberdeau-Kadri-Coronato
Farabee-??????-Coleman
Sharangovich-Frost-Pospisil
Lomberg-Rooney-??????


Buzzing
Joel Farabee stepped up in Backlund’s absence playing 2:46 of penalty kill with zero goals against.

The 25-year-old from Cicero, New York has played a total of 11:26 of penalty kill for the Flames through 14 games and is yet to allow a goal against. It’s only taken 14 games for Joel to play more PK time in Calgary than he did through 50 games with the Flyers. 11:26 vs. 9:55.

You can see his confidence building with each game. With three goals in 14 games, Farabee is scoring at a 17-goal pace over 82 games. A sizeable increase from his 13-goal pace in Philly.


Rolling
Are the Calgary Flames on a hot streak?

Huska’s crew has stolen at least one point in all of their last five games. They have a .700 points percentage (T-9th in the NHL) since March 2, but have lost more (3) games than they've won (2) over that time.

It’s tough to say. What do you think?

Since the theme of the day is ripping on Ryan Huska, here are some shootout stats going back to the start of 2022-23 prior to last night.

Andersson: 4/7 - 57%
Huberdeau: 4/11 - 36%
Sharangovich: 3/7 - 42%
Frost: 3/7 - 42%

Below is some other choices.

— TrevorNeufeld (@Trevor_Neufeld) March 13, 2025

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