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Recap: Flames Newcomers Help Calgary To Opening Night Victory, 5-3 Over Colorado

The Flames opened up the 2022-23 season with a dominant performance at home over the Avs.

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Calgary Flames 5 – Colorado Avalanche 3

Complete Stats

Scoring

1st: COL 1:39- Byram (Toews/MacKinnon), CGY 11:23- Ritchie (Lucic/Weegar)

2nd: CGY SHG 2:31- Dube (Mangiapane), CGY 14:52- Andersson (Weegar)

3rd: CGY PPG 1:12- Toffoli (Kadri/Andersson), CGY PPG 2:47- Lindholm (Huberdeau), COL

3:08- MacKinnon (Unassisted), COL PPG 11:01- Nichushkin (Rantanen)

The Calgary Flames have snapped the streak! For the first time in 13 years the Calgary Flames have won an opening night game, a run of infamy that went all the way back to 2009. And this was no small task either, as Calgary opened up with the defending Stanley Cup champs in the Colorado Avalanche.

The Flames came out hot from the puck drop and even with a late push by the Avalanche, Calgary was the better team from start to finish. It was going to be interesting to see how this new Flames group would play seeing they didn’t get a lot of time together on the ice in the preseason, but they looked fine. Calgary got contributions from all throughout the lineup with five different players scoring goals and five different players picking up helpers.

Despite an early soft goal and not a lot of work on the first 20 minutes of the game, Jacob Markstrom made some solid saves late in the contest, stopping 22 of the 25 shots that came his way to earn the win.

Calgary gets Friday off before they head up the road to play their only road game in their first 10 contests on Saturday night against the Edmonton Oilers.

Highlights

Final Thoughts

-The Flames newest additions certainly fueled this 5-3 victory tonight. MacKenzie Weegar had two assists and a key blocked shot that led to a Rasmus Andersson breakaway and goal. Nazem Kadri picked up an assist as did Jonathan Huberdeau. The patience by all three players and what looked like a cohesive group (as a team) was certainly nice to see after all the offseason upheaval.

-The second line of Dillon Dube, Nazem Kadri and Andrew Mangiapane was on fire during this contest. Dube was flying all over the ice and was extremely physical, which led to a lot of quality chances. If this line can play half as good as they did tonight, it’s going to be a fun season.

-Defensively, the pairing of Michael Stone and Nikita Zadorov were incredibly effective and were the best pairing for a good chunk of the game. They didn’t press, played effective on the PK and never put the Flames in any bad situations.

-The Flames special teams were on point as well, taking full advantage of Colorado’s mistakes. Calgary’s PP went 2-5 and the PK was a very respectable 3-4. All in all, a very good night for the PP/PK.

Flame Of The Game

MacKenzie Weegar (D): 2 assists, 3 hits, 1 blocked shot

by Mark Parkinson