Dustin Wolf is in the zone.
The 23-year-old Calgary Flames shot-stopper earned his first shutout of his NHL career last Friday and then followed it up with a performance that was maybe just as impressive.
Wolf stopped 28 of the 29 shots he faced against the New York Islanders (7-7-5) and then turned away two shooters in the shootout to earn the Flames (10-6-3) a 2-1 win.
So yeah, he’s in the zone.
What exactly is “the zone”, though?
Allow Wolf to explain.
“It’s a little bit of everything. You’re reading plays well and I don’t know if ‘predicting’ is the right word but you’re kind of envisioning what’s going to happen next,” Wolf said. “You’re seeing through bodies, you’re just connected. It’s a good feeling to have and one you certainly have to work every day to keep.
“The mindful side of the game, if you can reach that zone you’re going to feel good.”
Wolf was unquestionably the standout player for the Flames on Tuesday night and head coach Ryan Huska credited his play early in the third period with turning the game’s momentum towards his team.
The Flames were down 1-0 after Pierre Engvall had opened the scoring in the second and the Islanders came out flying, seemingly intent on putting the game out-of-reach.
But Wolf stood on his head, stopping shot after shot and keeping the Islanders within striking distance.
And there was one save in particular that caught the eye of Islanders coach Patrick Roy. When you’re earning kudos from one of the greatest goalies in NHL history, you’re definitely doing something right.
“Their goalie made some great saves,” Roy said post-game. “I’m thinking about that cross-pass on (Kyle Palmieri), that was a really good save he made there.”
That particular save kept the score tight and seemed to shift the momentum a bit, with Scott Mayfield taking a tripping penalty shortly thereafter and the Flames capitalizing on the power-play to tie things up when Rasmus Andersson scored.
“The save he made, even off that faceoff where they went seam to Palmieri, that’s a big save but he was there before the shot,” Huska explained. “We’ve talked about him before, when he’s reading the pass, he’s on. His reads are really good.”
Wolf has been excellent this season for the Flames, winning seven of the 10 games he’s started while posting a 2.36 goals-against-average and a .925 save percentage. He’s been even better in his past five games, and it’s no surprise that his name is being seriously discussed as a Rookie of the Year candidate.
The only question now is whether the Flames will start him again on Thursday against the New York Rangers or go back to their rotation with Dan Vladar. So far this season, the precedent suggests that only a shutout earns a goalie two starts in a row.
But what about a performance like the one Wolf put in against the Islanders? They don’t get much better, despite the goal he allowed.
“He’s been great, what can you say?” Huska said. “We’ll have some conversations after the game, for sure.”
Power-play
Andersson described it as “extra nice” that the Flames power-play was able to score the big goal that tied things up in the third period.
It’s understandable that there was some relief for the unit, which hadn’t scored in their previous three games and has converted on only 15.1% of their opportunities, which is fourth-worst in the league even after Tuesday’s goal.
So what did they do different? Not much, it seems.
As Andersson described it, the goal was mostly the result of moving the puck with pace.
“It all starts with we’re shooting it and we bury the box and then get it up-top,” Andersson said. “As you can see, (Islanders goalie Semyon Varlamov) didn’t see anything on my goal and I basically shot it in the middle of the net and it went in. It’s because of the quick puck movement and if we can string that together over a longer period of time we’ll be just fine.”
The penalty-kill was perfect on Tuesday, too, and didn’t allow a goal on three Islanders attempts. The last one came late in overtime, and for a unit that is killing penalties at the 26th-best rate (75%) in the NHL, it was a huge moment.
“Again, it’s something we’ve talked a lot about, we’re going to be in close games a lot of nights that we play and we need special teams to be better and tonight I thought they were the difference,” Huska said.
Catalyst for Kuzmenko
While Wolf turned away both Islanders shooters he faced, the Flames got goals in the shootout from Justin Kirkland and Andrei Kuzmenko.
Kuzmenko has been struggling to produce offence recently, which is generally the main strength of his game.
He’s scored only once this season and has gone 15 games without potting one.
But he pulled a nifty dangle and then buried a nasty backhand to beat Varlamov in the shootout, and the hope is it can spark something in his game.
“He’s a good player, he does a lot of things really well especially when he’s feeling it with the puck, he’s able to cut back unlike anyone on our team,” Huska said. “Sometimes when you get a situation like that and he is able to do something and he feels like he’s helping the team win, it can catapult him to other things.”
More goals, please
The Flames have won three of their last four games and have picked up points in all-but-one of their last seven, so there’s a lot of things going right.
But they’re not scoring many goals and that’s something they’d like to improve on.
They haven’t scored more than three goals in a game this month. They’ve gone 5-2-2 over that stretch, though, so they’re finding ways to win without scoring in bunches.
But they would definitely like to score more.
“We do, without a doubt,” Huska said. “It’s something we’ll continue to work on and talk about with our players to help them find ways to score but at the same time I think it’s important that our team recognizes who we are and how we’ve gotten here and that’s through the hard work and checking we’ve been doing pretty consistently.”
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