Three takeaways as suddenly surging Flames shut out Mammoth

Team Tank is going to be sorely disappointed.

Suddenly, the Calgary Flames (11-15-4) are on a bit of a roll. Games like Saturday evening’s 2-0 win over the visiting Utah Mammoth (14-13-3) might not be end-to-end, highlight-packed barn burners, but they’re starting to stack up.

The once-hopeless Flames have suddenly gone 6-2-1 in their last nine games. They’ve crawled out of last place in the NHL, which isn’t saying much, but is still something, and they’re starting to look an awful lot like the tight-checking, hard-to-beat team they showed themselves to be last season.

You might even say they look like a team that has turned around their fortunes after a terrible start to the season.

“It’s definitely nicer to be on that side of things than the opposite,” said Flames centre Nazem Kadri. “In here, internally, I think we understood that at some point that was going to happen. We were very confident about that, but now it’s just a matter of when things are going well, you want them to continue going well. That’s what we’re going to do.”

Saturday’s win wasn’t necessarily pretty. Yegor Sharangovich scored 16 seconds into the game at the Saddledome and then the Flames grinded it out until Connor Zary potted an empty-netter to seal the deal with a little over two minutes left in the third period.

Again, not the most entertaining game of hockey you’ll ever see, but the Flames don’t win by scoring a tonne of goals. They win by blocking shots, forechecking relentlessly and beating their opponents in the tough areas of the ice.

It worked against the Mammoth and recently, it’s been working a whole lot more often.

Here are three takeaways from Saturday’s game:

OUTSTANDING

After sitting out a few games and watching Devin Cooley man the crease for the Flames, Dustin Wolf has made one heck of a statement.

He stopped all 27 shots he faced against the Mammoth to earn the shutout, only two nights after stopping 26-of-27 shots in a win over the Minnesota Wild.

Wolf’s been as close to perfect as you could ask for.

Did the break benefit the second-year star? On some level, yes.

“You know what, I had a second to recoup,” Wolf explained. “I wasn’t really happy with some areas of my game. Bounces happen, that’s hockey, but to come in and like where my game is at and keep building, at the end of the day you’re trying to give your team a chance to win, and so far, so good.”

It’s worth noting that Wolf’s game was trending in the right direction throughout November, but the last two games have been the best we’ve seen from him this season.

That those performances came at the Saddledome is no surprise.

Through 11 home games this year, Wolf is posting a .932 save percentage and a 1.91 goals-against average.

“I think home’s comfortable, it’s nice to be home,” Wolf said. “We haven’t been home a whole lot and we definitely want to take advantage of this stretch we have for the next couple months where we’re home for a large chunk of time. This is our opportunity to battle back into the playoff picture.”

CAN’T BE IGNORED

Game after game, Rasmus Andersson is playing the best hockey of his career this season.

He was the best skater on the ice for the Flames again against the Mammoth.

While he wasn’t credited with an assist on Zary’s empty-netter, the goal doesn’t happen without him. With the puck deep in the Flames’ zone, Andersson read the Mammoth’s passing perfectly and intercepted the puck, clearing the zone for it to eventually land on Zary’s stick.

It was a huge play and sealed the win for the Flames. He also hit a cross-bar earlier in the game that just about every single person in the Saddledome thought was a goal.

“Unfortunately, it bounced, hit the goal line and rolled the other way,” Andersson explained.

Either way, the Swedish defenceman continues to play exceptionally well for the Flames. 

HOT START

Scoring 16 seconds into any game is obviously a pretty ideal way to start.

Against a Mammoth team that had played on Friday night in Vancouver, it was exactly what the Flames were hoping to do.

Maybe not 16 seconds, precisely, but the Flames wanted to jump all over their tired opponents. 

“It doesn’t get any better than that,” said Kadri, who picked up an assist on Sharangovich’s goal. “As a player, scoring on your first shift, that’s the way you want to draw it up. Credit to us, we knew we had to have a strong first period, especially the first 10 minutes. We wanted to put them on their heels.

“It was a bit of a favourable schedule for us today, so that was a priority.”

daustin@postmedia.com

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