Nobody expected THIS from Calgary...

Through the first five games of the season, the Calgary Flames were easily the worst team in the NHL with record-breaking pace for the worst goal differential in history. Well, it's safe to say with a tough schedule, nobody expected Calgary to turn around on the back of Devon Cooley. It's been fun times. We're going to get to all that more in this video, but first I want to welcome you to Flames Digest. I'm Mark Griffith. If you're new around here and you love the Flames, make sure to subscribe so you can stay up to date on all the latest news, updates, reports, and rumors revolving around your Calgary Flames. We would love to welcome you to the Flames Digest family. speaking of the Flames Digest family please subscribe it means the world to me it sincerely does help out I really do appreciate it it's completely free for you so for why not I mean why not go for it it helps out a ton plus you get to join the Flames Digest family and again I do sincerely want to say thank you for that now let's get into last night's game because it was really fun as the Calgary Flames defeated Toronto for their fourth straight win uh that was supposed to say fourth straight win not their fourth win it's actually uh pretty crazy but uh 5-2 5-2 5-2 what a game the flames they looked excellent you can just tell they're having fun Matt Vejgriden finally took over this season he scored a couple wicked goals talk about absolute snipes and even better sellies he copied you know Gavin McKenna for the first one and then gritty it's the gritty for the second goal one of the best things we've seen this entire season how awesome was that and the flames obviously did hang on to get that big win there which is great to see if you want to take a look at the full box score here it is for you i'm just going to focus on the guys who did end up on the score sheet and of course talk about Cooley stats first because he's been hot and he's just rolling so once again he gets the win after once again getting the start gives up just two goals on 28 shots for the 26 save win 929 save percentage the 203 goals against average he once again looked great he made a ridiculously good save in the first period and did enough to obviously hang on for this one as well which has brought us to four straight wins so we're on a week a win streak sorry of four games hottest team in the league technically we've won five of the last six which is great to see and it's against not you know necessarily easy competition as well it's been against the defending cup champs Minnesota who had barely lost uh going into the season detroit maybe an easier game and then toronto who had been technically the hottest team in the league heading into this game as well so once again so great to see the flames you know just playing that well and they also not only have this win streak going but they broke the streak of two games in a row they'd faced an opponent that they'd lost the previous eight games to we hadn't beaten Toronto since 2022 we finally get a win against them once again in the crowd which was honestly I'd say more Leafs fans than Flames fans but the crowd was clearly pleased to go home about that and you know honestly again nobody kind of expected this it's been an unexpected turnaround as Darren Haynes here says this has been one of the most unexpected stretches of Flames hockey I can remember honestly you knew they'd win some games but after that start a 4-0 homestand against those teams come on now it's no fluke either it's been entertaining fun creative high skilled hockey and i mean the main person we have to thank once again is Devin Cooley his unconscious brain and his capabilities that come with that have been absolutely excellent which has just been great to see if we dive into his stats a little bit further here once again like I said the 26-save win but um yeah did enough as well the flames didn't have to you know be too bad on the penalty kill that wasn't the right way to say that they didn't have to do too much on the penalty kill is a better way to save it but uh yeah no he stood on his head did amazing once again did enough to get the win and that's honestly been four quality starts in a row for the guy's first start actually wasn't horrible against Vancouver then he lets in seven against Colorado and you're thinking this is going to be a long long season he hasn't had a bad start since And that bad start will eventually come once he, you know, gains consciousness again. But look at how good his last four starts have been. Not only has his save percentage obviously been very high, but his goals saved above expected have been amazing. At least one in every game. Technically, this is the one where he played the worst out of the last four games, if you look at the advanced stats. But he has just, once again, been excellent on this homestand. So these, Pat Stearns pointed out first, but Ryan Pike said it as well. So Devin Cooley's homestand He went with a 4-0-0 record, 127 saves on 133 shots for the 0-9-5-5 save percentage with the Battle of Alberta up next. That one not in Calgary, but it'll be very interesting to see who does get the nod in goal. I mean, Oscar will probably go with the hot hand and go with Cooley as well. They'll technically both be rested. But again, thank you, Cooley, for making this such an exciting stretch of Flames hockey. You know, the very deep team tankers will say you better quit it, but it's been fun no matter what. Another guy having fun. We spoke about him a bit. Well, we got to talk about Matt Veegan because this was one of the best games he's ever played in the NHL. Maybe it was the best. So again, two goals and both of them were just beautiful shots. Capped the night off with an assist as well. Got the game winning goal and gritted on the Leafs while doing it, which was awesome. Finished as a plus two in over 16 minutes of ice time. He had five shots. I even got, you know, a block in there, I guess if we want to make him look like a defensive menace as well. but it was just so great to see it genuinely was so here's uh his goal one of the one of his goals I should say um it was just beautiful it was on the power play and that's another thing I forgot to mention was that uh Cooley got an assist oh I need to go back to the box score I only spoke about I only spoke about Cooley so yeah Gritten two goals and assist Pospisil was great with a goal and an assist Farabee stays hot with a goal and an assist I believe he's a point per game player at this point. Backlund got the other goal. I believe he tied Johnny Gaudreau for all-time points in Flames franchise history. Coronado, more helpers for him. He has just been dishing this season. Nemec gets a couple of assists, which was great to see. Parekh got an assist, which was really nice. Kuznetsov got an assist. And Cooley got one as well, which is where I was going with that. But great to see so many guys get on the score sheet. A lot of guys played really well. So happy that Farabee's doing that well. Glad to see Nemec get a couple in there too. and yeah when did Coronado become such a you know disher but this one came just 25 seconds into the second period a great outlet pass by Parekh after he picked up the puck from Cooley and then just what a shot and then an even better selly it was just insane if you have not if you missed the game for whatever reason and then haven't watched the highlights after please I implore you it will be the happiest you've been as a Flames fan in quite some time um another thing to point out here just with Gritten and the celly so this is a quote from him that Eric Francis is pointing out he says obviously my nickname is Gritty and i was thinking about that for a long time and i thought it was a good moment to do that up by three and having fun actually Zane Parekh just posted on instagram right before i started recording uh with literally the caption this is fun and a bunch of photos so cool uh but Matt Vaigriden on his two goal three point dance against the Leafs that's what he had to say he also said they all loved it a couple old guys said it was a bit too much but i think they loved it and of course you're going to hear that we've already heard those geezers like uh Justin Williams say that there's no place for that in hockey yada yada yada they're having fun let them have the fun it's it's a celebration they do it in other sports all the time it was just so awesome to see once again and yeah maybe you know do that late in the third kind of thing to just make sure you secure the victory but it's so good and when you're heating up like Gritten has been because he started the season quite slow I mean all the flames did but look at how much he's been picking it up lately five points in the last 10 games most of that obviously has come in just the past couple games here with five in the last two look great in the old four uniforms looked even better last night but this is just the quote again I guess I have it up there from just Gritten wanted to make a graphic that shows just him doesn't make it look like Eric Francis said it but I just love that quote so much his nickname is literally gritty why not do it so one last thing here Darren Haynes pointing out about Gritten as well is it's over the shoulder this time for Matt Bay Gritten who has two goals tonight and four snipes and I mean snipes in his last four games the 20 year old is sizzling hot and he really is and what I really like from here why I selected this one is because he uses the word snipes because they genuinely have been such well-placed shots a lot of people would say Bobrovsky looked horrible how is he going to save these Gritton shots they're absolute lasers headed for the top corner every time so just so nice to see now with the flames playing well it does bring up a bit of a question that i mean do i go there but playoffs the calgary flames are actually climbing the pacific division standings and if i bring up the good old race that i love to bring up here we go the horses are off this is how the season's gone so far from late september into october and as you can see we are climbing if we get to where we are currently we're actually tied on points with Anaheim with the exact same record so you know we were at the bottom for quite a while there we are climbing it might not be the strongest division we haven't played as many games as some of these other teams and who knows the question of playoffs it's very early I personally don't think the Flames are necessarily you know a strong contender this year but who knows you could just make the playoffs in the last year of the dome which would be very very interesting obviously Edmonton Vegas having that battle up there which is very interesting but love seeing that one and then in terms of the actual standings here the wild card picture so just three points out again it's still very early in the season we do have a game in hand on some of these teams but it's tight you know Vancouver already looks just generationally horrible once again Chicago might never be good in the Connor Bedard era and then LA they just you know don't have much of an offense although they've been actually a little bit better lately as well I shouldn't hate on them too much but it It has been interesting. And with the upcoming schedule looking like this, you know, it's been a crazy month with all those huge losses at the beginning of the month. And then you start to gain some momentum against Anaheim a bit. And then for whatever reason, you have this homestand and just turn into the prime flames of the late 80s. But we do have the Oilers coming up tomorrow and then back at home against the Kraken and then a back-to-back with Colorado in Denver on Saturday as well. That'll be very interesting. and I guess it'll help us you know kind of get into that notion of will we make the playoffs or not I mean it's still so early in the season it's October for goodness sake but what a month it's been for Flames hockey it's it's been ups and downs pretty much down to up and we'll just see where it goes from here now let's get into the comment of the day to wrap up this video as we love to do here on the channel comes from yesterday's video of course and I mean I just had to go with it once again because how spectacular was it but wheel of time says gritty hitting the Gritty is probably the best thing I've ever seen and it's absolutely up there for you know Flames hockey of the past I'd go as far as saying four years now it has just been excellent to watch him hopefully he can keep it up you know just seeing him develop the boys having fun just gaining that chemistry and just developing our young guys it's been perfect I'm glad that you know Gritton is now hated essentially by the entire city of Toronto hilarious who would have seen that coming I'm not complaining one bit. Thank you so much for watching this video. Please subscribe if you like what you saw here today and have a wonderful rest of your day.