Flames vs. Red Wings: Joel Farabee's Three-Point Night Pushes Calgary's Win Streak to Three

Two weeks ago the Calgary Flames were 0-5-0 and looked like a team that had wandered into the wrong season. Now they have a three-game winning streak, a power play that cannot miss and a forward who is playing like he found the cheat codes.

Joel Farabee scored once and set up two more, and the Flames beat the Detroit Red Wings 4-1 on Saturday night at Scotiabank Saddledome. Calgary scored three times in the second period, twice on the power play, and Devin Cooley handled the rest by stopping 29 of 30 shots for his third straight win.

The Red Wings arrived with points in six straight games and had beaten Calgary eight straight times dating to Feb. 9, 2023, according to NHL.com. Both streaks died inside one bad period.

Farabee Strikes First, Copp Strikes Back

At 17:50 of the first, Adam Klapka slid the puck across the ice and Farabee beat John Gibson glove side with a snap shot for a 1-0 lead, with Kevin Bahl picking up the second assist. "I was trying to go to the right areas and luckily got a bounce," Farabee admitted.

Detroit needed only 2:22 of the second to pull even. Andrew Copp won a battle with defenseman Zayne Parekh for a loose puck at the top of the crease and poked a backhand past Cooley, with J.T. Compher earning the only assist. It was Copp's second goal of the season.

"We made a real grave mistake on the first (goal), but we fought our way back into and found a way to even up the game," Detroit coach Todd McLellan said.

The Middle Frame Belonged to Calgary

Then the second period turned into a Flames highlight package. Parekh, the same defenseman who lost the puck battle on the tying goal, got his redemption at 8:38 on the power play. His shot from the point clipped Gibson's left pad and trickled in for his first goal of the season, with Matt Coronato and Farabee on the assists. Six minutes after starring in the wrong replay, he starred in the right one.

"I think that's what we're doing really well is just moving pucks around and finding the open guy and guys are scoring, which is important," Parekh said.

Late in the period, Calgary blew the doors off with two goals less than a minute and a half apart. Ryan Strome fought his way into the slot and swatted home a Morgan Frost feed at 17:04 for a 3-1 lead. At 18:30, back on the power play, Matvei Gridin one-timed a Farabee pass past Gibson to make it 4-1. "I was supposed to be on the half wall, but I moved to the bumper spot and (found) the open ice. They want me to shoot more, that's for sure," Gridin said.

The third period was scoreless, which suited the home team perfectly.

Farabee and Cooley Are Driving the Turnaround

Farabee finished with a goal, two assists and 18:52 of ice time, and the AP noted he now leads Calgary with nine points in 10 games. He has points in four straight games, with two goals and four assists in that stretch, per NHL.com. "We just have a little bit of confidence and a little bit of swagger right now that maybe we didn't have the first five or six games of the season," he said.

Cooley, making his third consecutive start, was quietly excellent. He posted a .967 save percentage and has allowed four goals total across the three-game winning streak.

Gridin added an assist to his goal, Coronato had two helpers and Bahl logged 25:03 with three blocked shots. "This was Matvei Gridin's best game of the year, and I think Ryan Strome played a big part of that," Calgary coach Ryan Huska said.

On the other side, Gibson faced only 25 shots and stopped 21, an .840 night he will not be framing. Copp, who won seven of his 11 faceoffs in 14:36 of ice time, was the lone Red Wing to solve Cooley.

Turning Point: Parekh Flips the Script

If one sequence decided this game, it was Parekh going from goat to hero in roughly six minutes. Detroit had just tied it. Instead, Calgary's first power play of the night produced the go-ahead goal, and the Red Wings never caught up again.

Special teams were the whole story, and McLellan said as much. "They were obviously better than us in multiple areas, look at the special teams alone," he said. "I thought it was one of our poorer nights as far as execution goes."

Stats That Matter

• 2-for-2: Calgary's power play on the night. NHL.com says the unit is 6-for-12 over the past four games. Detroit went 0-for-2.
• 21-9: Detroit's giveaways compared with Calgary's.
• 15-6: Calgary's edge in blocked shots, a big reason Detroit's 30-25 advantage in shots on goal never felt dangerous.
• 55.1: Detroit's faceoff win percentage. Lots of possession, little to show for it.
• 8: Detroit's winning streak against Calgary that ended Saturday, a run that included four straight wins at the Saddledome.

What It Means

Calgary is 4-6-0 with eight points and 3-3-0 at home. More to the point, the Flames have won four of five since that 0-5-0 start, and they host Toronto on Monday night with a power play that suddenly looks like a weapon.

Detroit falls to 4-4-3 with 11 points and 1-1-2 on the road. The six-game point streak (3-0-3) is over, and this was the Red Wings' first regulation loss in seven games. Next up is a Monday night game at Edmonton. Forward Emmitt Finnie did not sugarcoat it. "They were the better team, and they came out with the two points," he said.

Calgary Is in Its Montage Era

Every good sports movie has the stretch where the underdogs stop losing and start believing, usually set to a cheesy synth soundtrack. Calgary is in that part of the film. Huska called it "our most complete game or close to it this year," and the numbers back him up: two power-play goals on two chances, one goal allowed and a goalie who refuses to leak.

A 4-6-0 record is still a hole. But for one Saturday night at the Saddledome, the Flames looked like a team that finally knows exactly who it is.

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