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Devin Cooley earns big praise on otherwise embarrassing night for Calgary Flames

Colton Pankiw
Colton Pankiw
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Mar 4 2026, 1:00 pm
Devin Cooley earns big praise on otherwise embarrassing night for Calgary Flames
Sergei Belski/Imagn Images

The Calgary Flames looked every bit like a team in the running for a first-overall pick on Tuesday night.

Going up against one of the Western Conference’s best in the Dallas Stars, the Flames were outclassed from start to finish and fell by a lopsided 6-1 final. Making matters all the worse was that the Stars were just 24 hours removed from a game against the Vancouver Canucks.

“It was one of those nights where we weren’t good top to bottom,” head coach Ryan Huska said. “I thought our defencemen were slow with the puck and the decisions that they made. I thought our forwards were light and easy to play against.”

Perhaps the greatest indicator of how ugly this one was came from the fact that Huska’s post-game press conference lasted less than two minutes. Even still, that marked the longest of any member of the Flames made available for media.

“It was just embarrassing,” Blake Coleman said. “There’s no excuse. It was an ugly loss … The opportunity was there. You get a team on a back to back, they didn’t have it in the first period either, and we just let them get a night off. It was bad all around.”

Coleman was actually one of the better Flames in the loss, recording an assist on a Morgan Frost goal in the first period. That tally evened things up at one apiece, though it wound up being the only offence they could muster up.

“Just not enough emotion out there. Didn’t push back enough,” Frost said. “They were on a back to back and we just came out flat, didn’t push them at all. It’s a disappointing feeling in the room. Sleep on it, two more home games this week. I think we’ll come out strong after something like that.”

The one slight positive in this one was the play of Devin Cooley, who relieved Dustin Wolf part way through the second period. He went on to stop 16 of the 18 shots he faced, including a couple ten-bell saves that kept things from getting even uglier.

“He’s been really consistent with what he’s done when he’s gone in there,” Huska said. “Even tonight when the game was out of reach, he competed and tried to make a save on everything that was coming at him.

“That’s what you love about him, and you want other players to recognize what he did in a situation where things weren’t going in our favour. He didn’t just say ‘tough night here.’ He stayed in there and made some saves. I was really proud of him for that.”

The Flames will have Wednesday to recoup before taking on Brady Tkachuk and the Ottawa Senators on Thursday. Based on last night’s outing, fans should expect to see Cooley get the nod in that one.

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