Canucks erupt for four third-period goals to turn aside Flames 4-1

Four goals in 15:48 changed everything

For two periods, Calgary held exactly the kind of road lead it wanted. Matt Coronato opened the scoring at 14:51 of the first, finishing a wrist shot with assists from Zayne Parekh and Joel Farabee, and that 1-0 margin survived all the way to the second intermission. The Flames did not add to it, but Vancouver had not solved Devin Cooley either.

The game turned almost immediately in the third. Liam Ohgren tied it 1:28 into the period on a wrist shot set up by Paul Cotter and Tom Willander, wiping out Calgary's advantage before the Flames could settle back into a low-event finish. The equalizer mattered not just because it reset the scoreboard, but because it changed the shape of the night: Vancouver no longer needed a perfect push, only one good sequence.

That next sequence arrived at 9:04. Elias N. Pettersson put Vancouver ahead 2-1 with a backhand, with Ohgren and Willander collecting the assists. The Canucks then created real separation late. Drew O'Connor scored at 16:33 from Linus Karlsson, and Aatu Räty followed just 43 seconds later, again from Karlsson, to stretch the margin to 4-1 and remove any suspense from the closing minutes.

Young support and depth offence carried Vancouver

The most striking part of Vancouver's comeback was who drove it. Four different Canucks scored in the third period, and several of the key touches came from players outside the usual headline lane. Ohgren finished with a goal and an assist, Karlsson supplied two assists, and Willander added two more from the back end. Cotter chipped in on the tying goal, while O'Connor and Räty delivered the late finishers.

That spread matters because Vancouver did not lean on its power play to rescue the result. The Canucks went 0-for-5 with the man advantage, yet still scored four times by finding offence at even strength. In a game where the shot totals stayed relatively close at 27-24, that kind of balanced contribution gave Vancouver a more durable edge than one hot power-play stretch would have provided.

Meriläinen and the blue line kept the deficit manageable

Before the third-period burst, Vancouver still needed its goaltender to make the comeback possible. Leevi Meriläinen stopped 23 of 24 shots for a .958 save percentage, and the only puck that beat him was Coronato's first-period strike. Calgary's special teams did its share by going 1-for-2 on the power play, but the Flames never found a second goal against Meriläinen.

The Canucks also did heavy defensive work in front of him. Filip Hronek blocked eight shots, the highest total on either side, and Vancouver finished with 20 blocks as a team. Zeev Buium added three. Calgary blocked 22 shots of its own and got 23 saves from Cooley, so this was not a game decided by one-way territorial numbers. It was decided by which side made its chances count when the finish line came into view.

Our take

Vancouver's most encouraging takeaway is not simply that it scored four times, but that it found a way to win without a functioning power play. When a team gets five opportunities and converts none, it usually needs either elite goaltending or broad support from the rest of the lineup. The Canucks got both. They defended well enough to stay within one, then received decisive offence from Ohgren, Karlsson, Willander, Elias N. Pettersson, O'Connor and Räty once the game opened.

Calgary, by contrast, left with a stat line that suggests how thin its margin was. The Flames won 53.6 per cent of the faceoffs, blocked 22 shots and got their lone goal on the power play, but they did not score at five-on-five and finished with 19 giveaways. Vancouver still has one clear area to sharpen after this result, because an 0-for-5 power play remains unfinished business. Calgary's cleaner priority is simpler: a one-goal lead through 40 minutes has to be backed by a stronger even-strength response than the Flames managed here.

Scoring moments

1. 1st · 14:51

   Matt Coronato Goal (1) Wrist Shot, assists: Zayne Parekh (1), Joel Farabee (1)

2. 3rd · 1:28

   Liam Ohgren Goal (1) Wrist Shot, assists: Paul Cotter (2), Tom Willander (2)

3. 3rd · 9:04

   Elias Pettersson Goal (1) Backhand, assists: Liam Ohgren (3), Tom Willander (3)

4. 3rd · 16:33

   Drew O'Connor Goal (1) Wrist Shot, assists: Linus Karlsson (2)

5. 3rd · 17:16

   Aatu Räty Goal (1) Wrist Shot, assists: Linus Karlsson (3), Elias Pettersson (3)