Cooley shrugs off ‘Team Tank’ talk as Flames post back-to-back wins at home

CALGARY — After a shaky start, there have been signs the Calgary Flames are starting to find their feet this NHL season.

Their first back-to-back wins at home — 3-2 against the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes early in the week and then Thursday’s 2-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild — pried the Flames (3-6-0) out of the league basement.

Goaltender Devin Cooley, who carried a save percentage of .958 through the two victories, took a poke at those already counting on the Flames to win the NHL’s draft lottery next year.

“Everyone counted us out and we’ve gone head-to-head with two of the top teams in the league these past two games,” the 29-year-old said.

“We’ve won and it’s been incredible and I already know the DMs I’m going to be getting from Team Tank are ‘just stop winning idiot’ but we’re going to keep doing our best and keep trying to win.”

Cooley weathered a hectic final 30 seconds when Minnesota’s Matt Boldy, Jared Spurgeon, leading NHL goal scorer Kirill Kaprizov and Danila Yurov all put the puck on Calgary’s net.

The six-foot-five goalie was on his back when the buzzer went, and he lifted his arms in triumph when the victory flames fired in the Saddledome.

“Your confidence should come from your process, not from the result,” Cooley stated after his 36-save outing.

“My confidence doesn’t really change much, if I’m being honest. I could go through five or six plays tonight that could have ended up in the back of the net. A couple of posts, a couple of one-timers that missed the open net, a few one-timers that just hit me that I didn’t even see, if they went up higher they could have scored.

“Every night you could get lit up, and it may just be pucks aren’t going your way, but every night, you could have a really good game and you could get all the bounces too. You just have to keep yourself very level-headed the entire season, whether you give up seven goals or you have a shutout, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Your confidence shouldn’t waver based off the result.”

The Flames were firmly in a rebuild to start their final season at the Saddledome before the move to Scotia Place next year.

But dropping five straight off the hop, and getting outscored 27-8 in that span, was ominous for a club seeking improvement and more scoring.

The Flames have begun to piece together the right elements to win games, said forward Ryan Strome.

“Unfortunately, it was a bad start for us this year. We’ve pulled the layers back and found a foundation that works for us and what’s acceptable and what’s not,” he said.

“We don’t have the offensive firepower that other teams do. We have to play the game a certain way. We didn’t really have that framework early, but we’ve got it going now.

“That’s a really good win, I think, for our team where we were 10, 14 days ago.”

Calgary scored two power-play goals in a game for the first time this season, courtesy of Joel Farabee and Aydar Suniev, and held Minnesota’s top-10 power play scoreless on four chances.

The Flames scored two power-play goals on 13 chances in their first half-dozen games, including an 0-for-6 in a home and home against Anaheim.

The Flames have gone 4-for-10 in four games since their first win of the season Oct. 13 at the Honda Center.

“They’re getting in the zone clean again to start with but it’s their puck movement overall,” head coach Ryan Huska said.

“We’ve had a few penalty kills that have been very aggressive over the last little while and in order to beat an aggressive penalty kill you have to move the puck, typically three clean passes in order to break them down.

“That started around the Anaheim time where they started to move it much quicker, and as a result, they’re starting to score now.”

The Flames, who are at home Saturday to the Detroit Red Wings, were minus captain and two-way centre Mikael Backlund against the Wild.

Backlund was day-to-day with an upper-body injury. Ben Jones of Waterloo, Ont., drew in for his NHL debut.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2026.

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press