The goals are still elusive, but the Flames find the right formula in a shutout win over the Sharks

The snake-hunted Calgary Flames have landed on a formula for winning games when scoring is an uphill battle.

The Flames took care of defense and a side of special teams while goalie Dustin Wolf stepped up to challenge when needed in Thursday’s 2-0 win over the San Jose Sharks.

Calgary (5-12-2) halted a three-game slide and knocked off the Sharks (8-7-3), who rode a four-game winning streak into the Saddledome.

More importantly for the Flames, last in the NHL and averaging 2.1 goals per game, the win reinforced that they will dig themselves out of their current hole if they take care of both ends of the ice until the final buzzer.

“It’s not like we’re going to see ourselves in 6-5, 6-4 games,” head coach Ryan Haska said. “We have to be satisfied and fine with winning the game 2-1, 2-0, whatever the case may be. If you make sure you do things the right way, your chances are going to come.”

Calgary held the NHL’s top road power play scoreless on two occasions, but its own man advantage was abysmal at 0-for-3 in the game and 0-for-16 in seven games.

The Flames outscored the visitors 13-1 and 27-6 in the two periods, but Blake Coleman scored the only goal of the game 59 minutes before Samuel Hunzik added an empty-netter.

Calgary fired 78 shots on San Jose’s net and got 36 through Jaroslav Skarov.

Too much idle firepower was a trend from a 3-2 loss in St. Louis two nights ago when Calgary outscored the Blues 16-7 in the third period and once again failed to score.

But patience and tenacity in the offensive zone made up for responsible defense and timely scoring in the Wolf’s 16-save shutout Thursday.

“We had shot volume again. We had some really good chances again tonight,” Huska said. “We could have scored more than just one goal in tonight’s game, especially in the first two periods.

“When people aren’t as tight on their sticks, when they don’t push it as hard as we’ve done in the last little while, it will come. That side will come. You have to make sure the other side is taken care of first.”

Captain Mikael Backlund, Coleman and Hunzik were assigned to a forward line that included the Sharks’ leading scorer, Maclean Calbrini. They kept the 19-year-old off the scoresheet with a big assist from Wolf in the third period, when Calibrini put four quality shots on the Calgary goal.

Coleman scored the game’s most consequential goal, and his team’s seventh of the season, ending a Sharks turnover early in the second period.

“It was a good 60. The buy-in was really high,” Coleman said. “A lot of games we’ve had 45 really good minutes, we’ve gone five to 10 minutes at different points in the game and it’s cost us a lot, because they score one or two and we’re not able to make the difference at the moment.

“I didn’t think we had a lack of creativity. We’re starting to play hard on penetration and things like that. The more you do it, the more pucks start falling.”

“Confidence is a really scary thing in both directions. The more you can muster, the more it will just build and build and you’ll look a lot better.”

The NHL season wasn’t a quarter old, but hockey pundits were already talking before Thursday’s game about the possibility of Calgary staying last and picking Gavin McKenna first overall in the 2026 draft.

But Coleman believes the Flames have time to climb from their low position.

“A win is great,” Coleman said. “We know that there’s not a single one in this room going to do anything right now. I would expect our attention to shift very quickly.

“With this tight schedule, we have opportunities to collect two, three, four, five wins and quickly change our pole position. It’s going to take a lot of these types of games to get us off the ground, but I hope that once the momentum builds, this type of schedule can really benefit you.”

The Flames host the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday.