On New Year’s Eve, the Calgary Flames finally clawed their way back to .500 after spending the better part of three months with a losing record.
The vibes were good. Optimism was in the air and there was a sincere belief that it could be a springboard for an exciting 2026.
Five days later, the Flames are back to being two games under .500. After losing to the Nashville Predators on Saturday, they were humbled by a terrible third period and fell 5-1 to the Seattle Kraken on Monday evening.
“I think the last two games were a little sour for us,” lamented Flames blueliner MacKenzie Weegar. “When we get back to .500, I don’t know if we all took a breath and got complacent, I’m not sure what it is but in this league there’s no time to take breaks.
“When you get back to .500 you want to take the next step as a team and you want to (win) those two games and go on the road feeling good, being above .500. It’s things like that where as a group, we’ve got to talk about it and talk about taking that next step as a group because it was right there for us and now we’ve got a big road-trip and we’ve got to battle back to .500 and when we get there, we’ve got to find the next gear.”
There isn’t necessarily a consensus on what has gone wrong over the last two games. They were in it right until the final minute against the Predators despite playing quite poorly.
They got off to a great start against the Kraken, with Adam Klapka putting them up 1-0 early and Jonathan Huberdeau having a chance to give them a stranglehold on the game a few minutes later on a penalty shot.
The game was tied 1-1 until early in the third period. Then, things really fell apart.
Can that be attributed entirely to the team taking their foot off the gas because they got back to .500 nearly a week ago?
“I don’t personally (think that),” said Flames head coach Ryan Huska. “We weren’t very good against Nashville. I thought for two periods tonight, we did some good things. We didn’t capitalize on our chances when we had opportunities in the first and second period.
“And then I don’t think in the third period we defended the rush well early, where they were able to score two goals.”
Here’s three takeaways from Monday’s defeat:
Calgary Flames right winger Matt Coronato is dogged by the Seattle Kraken in the third period at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Monday, January 5, 2026. Brent Calver/Postmedia
1. GETTING BACK TO .500
Truthfully, this is more of a continuation of the introduction.
It was notable that Weegar wasn’t alone in being frustrated with the way the Flames have played the last two games. He wasn’t the only Flames player to bring up the impact that hitting .500 had seemed to have on the group.
“It was a hard loss, I’m not going to lie,” Klapka said. “Every time we get back to .500, we kind of get off it. We can’t do that. There’s other teams that are pushing for it and if we stop playing for a little bit they’re going to get over us and we can’t let them do that. We have to get back to how we played a couple games before (Monday) and it will be fine.”
It’s worth noting that even this brief two game slide has been costly, beyond the psychological impact of falling below .500.
The Flames were one point back of a playoff spot on the morning of New Year’s Day. By Wednesday morning, that gap could be extended to five.
2. IMMEDIATE IMPACT
Brayden Pachal was back on the Flames blueline for the first time since December 8.
He’d been scratched for 10 games but wasted no time making his presence felt against the Kraken.
Pachal threw a career-high nine hits. That physicality may be the key to him getting more playing time, even if he was at least partially responsible for the Kraken’s second goal of the night.
“He was physical and he was hard,” Huska said. “That’s kind of what you expect from him when he plays the game. He most definitely was that tonight. Every time he was on the ice, he tried to have impact in that area.”
The Flames will have some decisions to make about what they want their defence to look like very soon. Hunter Brzustewicz has been playing very well since being called up from the Calgary Wranglers and Zayne Parekh will be returning to the fold during their upcoming road-trip.
Both guys are key to the Flames’ future and bring offensive upside that a guy like Pachal doesn’t have in his tool kit.
They can’t match his physicality, though, as he reminded the world of last night.
Calgary Flames goaltender Dustin Wolf and rookie goaltender Owen Say look on from the bench in the third period against the Seattle Kraken at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Monday, January 5, 2026. Brent Calver/Postmedia
3. NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT
There were a lot of people who were probably surprised to see Owen Say emerge from the Flames’ lockerroom for warmups.
He shots stops for the Wranglers full-time, and where was Devin Cooley?
Turns out there was nothing to worry about. Cooley was just sick and is fully expected to join the Flames for their upcoming road-trip. He’ll be disappointed to have missed a game in which he likely would have started, but instead Dustin Wolf got the call while Say stayed on the bench.
Wolf stopped 23 of the 27 shots he faced.