Flames vs. Ducks: Martin Pospisil's Late Deke Delivers Calgary's First Win of the Season

Five games, five losses and the longest season-opening losing streak in franchise history. Then Martin Pospisil grabbed a pass at center ice, motored down the left side, sold a shot that froze two Anaheim defensemen and snapped the puck past Lukas Dostal on the short side with 4:22 to play. Calgary finally had something to celebrate.

Pospisil's first goal of the season broke a 2-2 tie, Yegor Sharangovich added an empty-netter with 1:22 left, and the Calgary Flames beat the Anaheim Ducks 4-2 on Tuesday night at Honda Center for their first win of the season. Adam Klapka and Aydar Suniev also scored, and Dustin Wolf made 23 saves. Three days after losing 4-2 to the same Ducks at home, the Flames returned the favor with the exact same score.

A Wild First, a Wilder Kill

Calgary struck first. At 8:32, Anaheim's Jeff Malott missed Tim Washe with an outlet pass, Maxim Tsyplakov picked it off in the slot and dropped it for Klapka, who snapped it past Dostal. Per NHL.com, it was the first time all season Anaheim had allowed the opening goal.

The Ducks flipped the game in a 1:56 burst. During a stretch of 4-on-4 play, Beckett Sennecke stripped Simon Nemec at the Anaheim blue line, raced in alone and beat Wolf glove side at 12:09. Then a pair of Calgary minors gave Anaheim a brief two-man advantage, and right after it ended, Leo Carlsson ripped a power-play goal from near the right dot at 14:05 for a 2-1 lead.

The middle period produced the night's strangest sequence. At 5:54, Sennecke went off for tripping and Alex Killorn for hooking, handing Calgary a full two minutes of 5-on-3. Dostal made four saves and the Ducks killed the whole thing. Then, eight seconds after both penalties expired, Ryan Strome whipped a cross-ice pass from outside the left circle to Suniev, who one-timed it past Dostal's blocker from the inside edge of the right circle at 8:02. Tie game.

Tempers flared at 11:44 when Malott and Klapka dropped the gloves, but the score stayed 2-2 until Pospisil's dash late in the third. Suniev started that play too, hitting Pospisil at the center circle. Pospisil faked a shot to freeze Tyson Hinds and Tristan Luneau and buried it at 15:38. With Dostal pulled, Sharangovich hit the empty net at 18:38.

The Turning Point

Killing a two-minute 5-on-3 is supposed to swing momentum toward the team that survives it. Anaheim did all the hard work and got burned anyway. Those eight seconds after the Ducks escaped were the hinge of the night, because they wiped out the lead Anaheim had built in the first period and gave Calgary's bench a jolt it badly needed.

Ducks forward Mikael Granlund knew what slipped away. "We've got to find a way to get points out of those games. Obviously, we didn't do it tonight. That's hockey," he said.

Suniev, Pospisil and a Relieved Goalie

Suniev was the engine, with a goal and the primary assist on the winner. According to NHL.com, he scored his first NHL goal in Saturday's loss to the Ducks and became the first Flames rookie to score in consecutive games since Klapka did it in 2024-25.

Wolf stopped 23 of 25 shots for a .920 save percentage, and he admitted the slow start had been weighing on everyone. "We've been battling hard the last few games and just can't seem to get over that hurdle," Wolf said. "It was nice to see one finally go in the net to give us two points."

Klapka, who scored and fought, kept it team-first. "I'm happy I scored, but obviously it's more important that we get a win," he said. Nemec added two assists, and Mikael Backlund won 12 faceoffs.

For Anaheim, Sennecke scored his fourth goal and Carlsson his second. Granlund's assist on Carlsson's goal extended his point streak to six games, the longest to start a season in team history, per NHL.com, and Carlsson has nine points in six games. Dostal made 32 saves on 35 shots.

The Ducks also gave Roger McQueen, their first-round pick in 2025, his NHL debut. He had one shot on goal in 11:26. "He gave us a different look, a right-side guy, and that's a look that maybe he can help us in," coach Joel Quenneville said.

Stats That Matter

• 36-25: Calgary's edge in shots. The Flames finally got the results to match the effort.
• 0-for-3: Calgary's power play, including a two-minute 5-on-3. The tying goal still came eight seconds after it ended.
• 57.4%: Calgary's faceoff win rate, with Backlund winning 12 draws.
• 1:56: The span in which Anaheim scored twice in the first period to take its only lead.

What It Means

Calgary is 1-5-0 with two points and 1-2-0 on the road. One win does not fix a season, but it ends a streak that had become a franchise record. Coach Ryan Huska sounded relieved. "It's not easy when you're in a stretch like this to start the year. You want to see the players have results," he said. "It's nice to see the pieces kind of come together a little bit more than they have the prior five games, so there were a lot of positives from the group tonight."

Anaheim falls to 4-2-0 with eight points and is 1-2-0 at home, with a two-game winning streak snapped. Sennecke said the Ducks knew it was coming. "It's hard to beat a team twice in a row and they're hungry," he said. "They'd lost five or six in a row, so we knew they were going to come with a push."

The injury report is not kind to the Ducks. Center Ryan Poehling has a medial collateral ligament sprain that will sideline him six to eight weeks, and Cutter Gauthier missed the game with a lower-body injury and is day to day, per the AP.

The Flames visit Vegas on Thursday. The Ducks host Boston on Friday.

Closing Take

Every bad start eventually needs a Ted Lasso "Believe" sign moment, and Pospisil supplied it with a fake shot and a short-side snipe. It was not a masterpiece, but Calgary does not need masterpieces right now. It needed proof that the losing was not permanent, and it found it in Anaheim.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details from the Associated Press; postgame quotes and notes as reported by NHL.com.