BURSTCALGARY — With 15 minutes left in a game his club led 2-0 over the Stanley Cup champions, Dustin Wolf was faced with the sort of scenario the youngster thrives on.
A Calgary Flames turnover during a line change allowed Sam Bennett to streak in alone from the blue line, poised to cut the Flames lead in half and spoil the netminder’s shutout.
Denied.
“Huge moment,” said Flames coach Ryan Huska.
“It’s 2-1 if Sam scores there, and it was a big save too. It’s not an easy move when Sam is coming with speed, because Sam is scoring now.
“He’s a dangerous player and if you think of turning points in the game, for sure that was one. It just so happened Backs (Mikael Backlund) scored shortly thereafter.”
The save was one of 32 Wolf had to make to secure his second NHL shutout, pacing his club to a 3-0 win over the Florida Panthers Saturday.
“I thought he kind of fanned on it a bit, but I’ll never complain about that,” smiled the 23-year-old goalie, who upped his record to 9-5-1.
“Anytime you can make a save in the third period, or a breakaway save in general, your hope is it brings your team momentum.”
The Flames haven’t had much momentum of late, losing seven of their previous nine and coming off an 8-3 drubbing from the Tampa Bay Lighting on Thursday.
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The Flames needed to stop the bleeding, as did Wolf, who had lost his last three starts, including a 6-2 loss in Dallas a week earlier that prompted the superstitious netminder to make wholesale changes.
“You know what, I came home from Dallas, got all new gear, changed my suit and came to the rink and played hockey,” said Wolf, admitting he needed a confidence boost.
“For sure, absolutely. The last couple I’ve not been at my best, but that’s the way hockey goes sometimes.
“Anytime you get the next opportunity you want to make the best of it.”
It says plenty about the rookie campaign Wolf is having that he can be counted on at a critical moment when it seemed the Flames were starting to fade.
This one was meaningful, not just to him, but to so many others in the Flames room.
And he knew it.
“A couple guys here who played there a few years prior, and big night for Lombo (Ryan Lomberg) getting his ring yesterday, and I’m sure he was super excited to play his old group,” said Wolf, who out-duelled Spencer Knight, his World Junior tandem-mate.
“That’s a good group over there. I think it should give our group confidence we can hang around with those teams.”
Nothing seems to instill more confidence in this group than when Wolf starts at the Dome, where he is the league’s very best at 8-1 with a 1.65 GAA and .949 save percentage.
Insane success, which could come in handy in the lead-up to Christmas, as the Flames host three more games before the break.
With Dan Vladar listed as day-to-day with a minor lower-body injury that could see him back at practice as early as Monday, it’s not ridiculous to suggest Wolf might get all three starts.
“That’s the kind of goalie he is, especially at home this year, he’s been lights out,” said Blake Coleman, the man guilty of the turnover Wolf had to cover up.
“If you make a mistake he’s there and he has got your back.”
A nice feeling for an offensively-challenged team that can only win low scoring games.
With Backlund and Coleman back together following a failed experiment, both managed to score in a game that also saw Nazem Kadri score (a beauty) for the third-straight game.
It was more than enough run support for Wolf.
“Well, we just beat the Cup champions, so it shows you we’ve got some fight in this group and some punch in us,” said Coleman, whose club got back to being a hard-checking, defensively sound club.
“We’ve said it all year, if we play that way we can beat anybody and we feel very confident in that.
“It’s a hard brand of hockey, so you’d be lying if you said you could have it at all 82 games. But if you can have it for 80 per cent of your games you’re going to give yourself a fighting chance to be in a position where it matters down the stretch.”
