A quarter into the 2025-2026 season and the Calgary Flames are bad. They are 32nd in the league, with a large gap between them and 31st. There are three standings between them and the Nashville Predators, and both teams have played an equal 20 games. The only other point difference of three points or more is between first and second in the NHL: the Colorado Avalanche at 31 and the New Jersey Devils at 27, although the Devils still have a game in hand.
Suffice it to say, the Flames are in the basement of the league, and they’re there on a solo basis.
Calgary just can’t score
A big reason why the Flames are in this predicament is their lack of finishing talent. In twenty games they scored only 42 goals. This is last in the league and is six goals shy of the closest team, which also happens to be the Predators.
Calgary’s top scorer is Blake Coleman with seven goals so far. He is responsible for 16.2% of his team’s goals. In contrast, seven goals with the league-leading Avalanche would be 9.0% of the team’s goals. That’s a big difference and shows how little the puck is getting in the net for the Flames.
A look at the expected goals
The Flames offense shouldn’t be that bad. Per NaturalStatTrick.comthey have a 5v5 rating and location-adjusted expected goals percentage (xGF%) of 54.0%. This is good for seventh place in the competition! However, their GF% is 46.3%, good (or bad?) for seventh last in the league…!
The more damning stats appear when you look at expected goals percentages: which are Calgary’s xGF/60 and xGA/60. Their xGF/60 is 2.47, which is 17th, and their xGA/60 is 2.1, which is first in the NHL.
The team plays an unexciting style of play and too often suppresses the attack in favor of defense. Playing good defense can certainly be a big factor in winning games, but you are also expected to generate offense. The best defense in the world can’t win games if it can’t score, and the Flames are faced with exactly this predicament.
The flames are in a hole
Returning to the simpler stats of total goals, the Flames are once again at 42 goals after 20 games (not counting the goal from their shootout win). This is good for 2.1 goals per match. The Predators are at 2.4 goals per game. Like the points comparison above, this 0.3 goals per game difference between 32nd and 31st only shows up when you look at the first and second place teams: the Avalanche have a whopping 0.48 goals per game difference over the Carolina Hurricanes.
In terms of goals per match, the teams ranked second to 31st all have a much smaller gap than 0.3 between their neighbors in the rankings. Simply put, the Avalanche are outliers at the top end, and the Flames are outliers at the bottom end.
A historically bad foul
As the entire NHL continues the shift toward more goals scored, Calgary’s performance so far this season is moving them toward the record books. Since the 2012–13 lockout, a scoring rate of 2.1 goals per match is the sixth worst:
| Team | Season | GF/GP |
|---|---|---|
| Buffalo sabers | 2013–14 | 1.83 |
| Buffalo sabers | 2014–15 | 1.87 |
| Detroit Red Wings | 2019–2020 | 2.00 |
| Colorado avalanche | 2016–17 | 2.01 |
| Arizona coyotes | 2014–15 | 2.01 |
| Calgary flames | 2025–26 | 2.10 |
Not good! If the Flames don’t find their scoring touch, there’s still a lot of season left before this gets any worse.
Let’s see how the Flames address this issue. While they may not win many games this year, figuring out their offense over the rest of the season would at least make for better progress. That’s all they can hope for.
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