EDMONTON – The Calgary Flames continued their behavior of beginning sturdy, even when they wanted a pair breaks to maintain their season-opening win streak alive.
Nazem Kadri scored the shootout winner within the eighth spherical to elevate Calgary to a 4-3 victory over the rival Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday.
Matvei Gridin, Connor Zary and Blake Coleman scored in regulation because the Flames erased a 3-0 deficit to spoil Edmonton’s house opener.
“I don’t know why we’ve to make it so dramatic, however on the street it’s by no means simple to be a visiting crew throughout a home-opener,” Kadri mentioned. “We got here out flying, have been capable of maintain the strain and type of construct our sport from there. So, it’s a personality win.”
Calgary had scored 5 or extra objectives in every of its earlier three season-openers — all wins — however fell wanting turning into simply the sixth crew in NHL historical past to succeed in the mark in 4 consecutive seasons.
The Flames’ success kicked in after Edmonton took a 3-0 lead on objectives from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, former Flame Andrew Mangiapane and Leon Draisaitl, who buried his four-hundredth.
Gridin, a 19-year-old Russian rookie and Calgary’s twenty eighth general draft choose in 2024, scored in his NHL debut 12:40 into the second interval. He benefited from a fortunate bounce as a cross to the center hit an Oilers defender’s skate and deflected previous Skinner from distance.
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“I attempted to cross it backdoor to Matty (Coronato), it went off some man’s skate and at the back of the web. So, I’ll take it,” Gridin mentioned. “It’s unreal. I do know a pair years in the past, I performed on PS (PlayStation), and now I’m in there. So, it feels good. A fantastic opponent, the opposite crew. You always remember your first sport and your first purpose.”
Gridin is the twenty ninth Flame to attain in his NHL debut.
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Calgary pulled to inside one with 5:13 left within the second interval as Zary batted a bouncing puck out of the air and into the web for a power-play purpose. The purpose survived a video evaluate to find out if it was a excessive stick.
The Flames then tied it up simply 40 seconds into the third on a dreadful giveaway by Stuart Skinner. The Oilers goalie struggled to deal with a bouncing puck, then misplaced it whereas attempting to make a play and in the end coughed it as much as Coleman for the purpose.
“It’s an enormous win, it galvanizes the crew,” Coleman mentioned. “You’re down 3-0 and also you present it as a gaggle that you just’re prepared to keep it up and begin taking part in the fitting means. We’ve proven prior to now we are able to win video games coming from behind. A whole lot of third-period objectives. You don’t wish to begin that means, however our crew confirmed plenty of resilience tonight.”
Skinner admitted it wasn’t his best second.
“It was one unhealthy determination, and it makes you look actually unhealthy and that’s type of the way it goes,” Skinner mentioned. “Their first purpose was fairly fluky and I feel their second one was fairly borderline. Actually, I felt good about my sport, and I’ll say that how we performed defensively tonight was excellent.”
Dustin Wolf made 32 stops and added seven saves within the shootout for the Flames. Skinner recorded simply 19 saves for the Oilers however stopped six shooters within the shootout.
“I like the best way we caught with it,” mentioned Flames head coach Ryan Huska. “We discovered ourselves behind the 8-ball early, however I assumed we received higher because the evening went on. There was actually no stop and we began to play the fitting means within the second interval, we began to determine our forecheck just a little bit greater than we did within the first interval and it allowed us to play a bit faster than we did earlier within the sport.”
Each groups face the Vancouver Canucks subsequent. The Flames go to Vancouver on Thursday evening earlier than the Canucks head to Edmonton on Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Oct. 8, 2025.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
