Hot Flames shut down Lightning's flashy stars in 4-3 OT win

Tampa Bay Lightning's Nikita Kucherov (86) gets stopped by Calgary Flames goalie Devin Cooley during third period NHL hockey action in Calgary, Sunday, March 22, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Larry MacDougal

CALGARY — The Calgary Flames boosted their win streak to three straight on Sunday for the first time since December.

In so doing, the Alberta crew cooled off the NHL’s hottest line.

Ryan Strome scored 26 seconds into overtime as Calgary prevailed 4-3 over the Tampa Bay Lightning and their sizzling trio of Nikita Kucherov, Brandon Hagel and Anthony Cirelli.

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The line had combined for 28 points in the previous three games with Kucherov, atop the NHL’s scoring race, leading the way with 12 points (six goals, six assists).

Kucherov was the only one to hit the score sheet as Tampa Bay’s three-game road winning streak ended. The NHL’s scoring leader picked up his 119th point assisting on Darren Raddysh’s second-period goal. Hagel (two goals, six assists) and Cirelli (four goals, four assists) were blanked, ending their three-game streaks.

“(Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper) does a really good job of changing them on the fly and getting them against the right matchups,” said Flames coach Ryan Huska. “So it really is five guys that have to try to be at their best, and you have to manage the puck the right way, and I thought the few times against them we didn’t, in those situations (Devin) Cooley bailed us out, and that was a big factor.”

Their best chance came in the waning seconds of the first period. With Calgary up 2-1, a turnover inside their blue line almost turned deadly, but on the three-on-one that went Cirelli to Kucherov and then across the slot to Hagel, Cooley stretched across the crease to make a spectacular blocker save.

“(Kucherov) is so smart, and he gets it on his backhand and I’m like, ‘oh, he’s passing,’” said Cooley, who made 32 stops. “So as he creeps in, I cheated a little bit and backed up and I went a little bit flatter, so when he passed, I was able to get across, which helped me.”

Fast forward to overtime and at the same end of the ice where Tampa Bay’s talented Russian was thwarted on his setup attempt, Calgary’s impressive young Russian, 20-year-old rookie Matvei Gridin, made an excellent pass to Strome to end it.

“(Mikael Backlund) won a faceoff, did his job, and Grids just put it on a platter for me,” said Strome, second on the team with six points (two goals, four assists) in nine games since the NHL trade deadline.

Huska spoke highly about Gridin post-game.

“Poise and strength. He held a check off, and he was still able to make that play to Strommer in the slot,” said the Flames bench boss. “We’ve talked a lot about him. He’s not your typical 19 or 20-year-old physique-wise, and he’s got a lot of confidence with the puck. Made a great play there that allowed us to win.”

Without MacKenzie Weegar and Nazem Kadri, who were traded, the Flames are 5-4-0 since that point including three straight wins to begin their current homestand.

“There’s been some good energy around our team lately. We talked about losing players, but we brought some good players in that are quality people,” said Huska. “There’s nothing better than winning. At the end of the day, even the nights where your team doesn’t play well, and you win, everybody goes home feeling much better about themselves. So winning is the elixir of most things.”

While Calgary may be the hottest team in the lisping Pacific Division, it’s coming too late as playoff hopes were dashed long ago. Sunday’s win moved the Flames up two spots to 29th in the overall standings.

Now it’s about establishing good habits.

“I’ve been through this before, and it’s really, really hard to snap your fingers and just become a winning hockey team,” said Strome.

“If you throw these games away, you don’t compete, you don’t play hard, those habits leak into next year, then all of a sudden you have a group that’s like, OK, we’ve got to start winning, and you don’t have the characteristics, you don’t have those qualities and the leadership and all those things that it takes.”

Next up is the desperate Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday.

“There’s a lot of guys in here, I think, playing for jobs and playing for their life, and that’s important and the team is trying to build a culture and confidence moving forward,” continued Strome.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 23, 2026.

Darren Haynes, The Canadian Press