Farabee has three points, Flames defeat Red Wings for third straight win
Cooley makes 28 saves for Calgary, which ends Detroit point streak at six
By Laurence Heinen
NHL.com Independent Correspondent
CALGARY -- Joel Farabee had a goal and two assists, and the Calgary Flames defeated the Detroit Red Wings 4-1 at Scotiabank Saddledome on Saturday for their third consecutive win.
“We’ve just been stacking wins and stacking good play the last couple games here,” said Farabee, who has two goals and four assists during his four-game point streak. “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. We’re just finding how we have to play to win and just trying not to do too much and playing simple.”
Matvei Gridin had a goal and an assist, and Matt Coronato had two assists for the Flames (4-6-0), who have won four of five after opening the season with five straight losses. Devin Cooley made 28 saves to win his third straight start.
“I really liked our game again,” Calgary coach Ryan Huska said. “I feel like we’re building right now in the right direction. I felt like this was our most complete game or close to it this year.”
Andrew Copp scored for the Red Wings (4-4-3), whose six-game point streak (3-0-3) ended. John Gibson made 21 saves.
“They were obviously better than us in multiple areas, look at the special teams alone,” Detroit coach Todd McLellan said. “I thought it was one of our poorer nights as far as execution goes. When we did work hard and got offensive opportunities, passes were in the skates, they were too far ahead, so just a lack of overall details cost us.”
Farabee scored to put the Flames up 1-0 at 17:50 of the first period. He took a cross-ice pass from Adam Klapka and snapped a shot past Gibson’s glove.
“‘Klapper’ made a really good play, just trying to throw it to the net and just got a little lucky that it found me,” Farabee said. “I was trying to go to the right areas and luckily got a bounce.”
Copp pulled the Red Wings into a 1-1 tie at 2:22 of the second period when he outbattled Flames defenseman Zayne Parekh to poke a loose puck at the top of the crease past Cooley.
“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,” McLellan said.
Parekh scored his first goal of the season on the power play to give the Flames a 2-1 lead at 8:38. His shot from the point deflected off Gibson’s left pad and into the net.
“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.
The Flames extended their lead to 3-1 at 17:04 when Ryan Strome battled his way into the slot to swat a pass from Morgan Frost past Gibson. Gridin drew the secondary assist on the play.
“This was Matvei Gridin’s best game of the year, and I think Ryan Strome played a big part of that,” Huska said.
Gridin one-timed a feed from Farabee past Gibson at 18:30 for Calgary’s second power-play goal of the period to make it 4-1.
“It feels great,” Gridin said. “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.”
The Flames went 2-for-2 on the power play and are 6-for-12 in their past four games.
“When the power play is scoring and things are going their way, they start feeling really good about playing on the ice and they know they can be difference makers and that’s the phase they’re in right now,” Huska said.
The Red Wings, who went 0-for-2 on the power play, had won eight straight games against the Flames since Feb. 9, 2023, including four in a row at the Saddledome.
“They’ve been playing good hockey recently,” Red Wings forward Emmitt Finnie said of the Flames. “We knew that coming into today that they were feeling themselves and it showed tonight. They were the better team, and they came out with the two points.”
