It was the basement bowl — the 31st-place team against the squad that is stuck in 32nd in the overall standings.
The Calgary Flames, with Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to the Blues in St. Louis, cemented their status as the NHL’s current worst of the worst.
They have now dropped to 4-12-2, a miserable .278 points percentage, as their fans daydream not about a remarkable turnaround but rather a draft lottery win.
We definitely don’t blame ’em.
In the two decades since league officials scrapped the tie, the Flames have never previously needed more than 15 games to record their fifth win of a new season.
This crew is at 18 … and counting. Yikes.
To their credit, they did show plenty of jam Tuesday. After finally snapping out of a shutout skid that stretched on for 154:53, they potted two goals in a 25-second span to make it a third period worth watching.
Although they pressed hard for the equalizer, as usual putting forth an admirable effort, it was a familiar result for this rock-bottom bunch.
“We pushed and we pushed and we pushed but it didn’t go in, the third one,” groaned Rasmus Andersson, who scored Calgary’s second — but last — of the evening in St. Louis. “We’re in a tough situation. There’s no sugarcoating it. It sucks, where we’re at.”
Here are three takeaways from the Flames’ latest loss …
Calgary Flames’ Matt Coronato (27) and St. Louis Blues’ Cam Fowler (17) battle for a loose puck during the second period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025, in St. Louis.
‘Just not acceptable’
A heart-on-his-sleeve sort, Andersson was wearing his frustration in his post-game scrum at Enterprise Center.
Ditto for forward Matt Coronato, who had the Flames’ other tally but was working to snap the blade off his stick after the final buzzer.
“I don’t want to stand here and give the same old cliches as we’ve done in the past, but it’s time to dig in,” Andersson said. “We should have digged in a few weeks ago here, because this is just not acceptable.
“It’s not one or two guys, it’s all 23 in here that needs to dig in and we have to do it now.”
Truth is, it’s likely way too late already.
The Flames are ranked last in the NHL in these stat categories — wins, goals per game, power-play percentage and goal differential.
While they may work their butts off, and while Coronato was proud that they showed “good resilience” after falling behind 3-0 to the Blues, it seems far-fetched to think that they’ll suddenly start stacking Ws or that general manager Craig Conroy should be shopping for some sort of quick fix. Absolutely not.
“Everyone in here cares. Everyone in here is not liking this,” Coronato stressed to reporters in St. Louis, where he ended his goal drought with a top-shelf rocket off the rush. “We need to turn it around. We’re going to keep playing hard. We’re going to find a way to get one and hopefully roll from there.”
Andersson’s ascent
With his second-period strike, hardly a beauty but a bury nonetheless, Andersson added his name to an impressive list.
He’s just the eighth defenceman in franchise history to score 50-plus goals in the Flaming C crest.
Who beat him to it?
Al MacInnis owns the club record with 213 lamp-lightings from the blue-line, while Mark Giordano, Gary Suter and Paul Reinhart are also in double digits.
Next up are Dion Phaneuf, Jamie Macoun and Phil Housley.
There’s something else that the rest of those dudes have in common … They all finished their NHL careers in other cities, a trend that will continue with Andersson. The Swedish workhorse is set to be an unrestricted free agent in the summer and it will be a shocker if he’s not dealt away between now and the trade deadline.
The 29-year-old Andersson has, like anybody on a last-place team, had some rough moments this fall, but we’d argue that there’s been a whole of lot of positives as potential suitors monitor his work. His numbers — including both his plus-minus and analytics — are significantly better than last season.
In the meantime, there’s no questioning Andersson’s commitment to his current crew, even as the losses pile up. He was as determined as anyone in St. Loo, finishing with a game-high seven shots on net.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda
This is so often how it goes for a struggling, slumping squad.
During Tuesday’s opening frame, the Flames had a glorious opportunity to even the score, but second-line winger Joel Farabee flubbed what should have been a freebie, wasting an open net when he flipped the puck through the crease from the left side of the blue paint.
It was at the end of the same shift, about 50 seconds later, that Matthew Kessel doubled the lead for the hosts — and doubled his career total with his second notch at the NHL level.
The third-pairing defenceman had just blocked Nazem Kadri’s attempt off the rush, then opted to fire on a fast break of his own.
Should Dustin Wolf have made that save? Yeah, probably. But the two teams should have been lining up at centre for a faceoff, the scoreboard showing a 1-1 tie.
This isn’t to suggest that this latest defeat is all Farabee’s fault.
Kadri missed on a sizzling shot as he raced down the wing. Jonathan Huberdeau was denied on a breakaway, then Yegor Sharangovich stopped on the rebound. Coronato whipped one wide from the slot in the final minute.
Farabee’s flub, however, was Tuesday’s biggest what-if, especially since that same shift ended in a minus.