The puck slid awkwardly off Yegor Sharangovich’s stick, tumbled forward like a coin dropped on ice, and somehow found its way under Darcy Kuemper’s pads. The Kings goalie never saw it coming. Neither did Sharangovich, who covered his mouth in disbelief as teammates swarmed him Tuesday night at the Saddledome.
“They’re laughing and chirping in the back, ‘Yegor Kucherov,'” he said afterward, grinning at the comparison to one of hockey’s most skilled forwards. The shootout winner against Los Angeles was pure accident. But the moment that set it up—that was deliberate, earned, and long overdue.
Midway through the third period, with Calgary trailing 2-1 and a two-man advantage ticking down, 19-year-old defenseman Zayne Parekh stepped into a shot from the point. The puck flew past Kuemper’s blocker. First goal of the season. Game 26. A kid who’d been waiting, grinding, learning how to exist in a league built for grown men finally got his reward.
“I was kind of accepting I wasn’t going to score this year,” Parekh admitted. His smile was equal parts relief and vindication. “So it was nice to find one.”
The goal itself mattered. But what happened around it mattered more. Parekh took the feed from Matvei Gridin, another 20-year-old forward still finding his footing. Matt Coronato, 23 and already carrying offensive expectations, was on the ice too. All three stayed out for overtime. All three are cornerstones of whatever Calgary is trying to build through this difficult, lottery-bound season.
Coach Ryan Huska didn’t stumble into that decision. He made it knowing full well the optics, the risk, the message it sends when you trust teenagers in high-leverage moments. According to a study from the International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, player development accelerates when young athletes are given meaningful responsibility in competitive settings. Huska is banking on that.
“I think he’s frustrated, or he was, and we’ve had some conversations about that,” Huska said of Parekh, who registered a career-high five shots on net. “He just needs to remember that he’s doing a lot of great things away from the puck. He’s learning how to play the game at the NHL level, which is crazy.”
Parekh stands shorter than most defensemen. He’s skilled in a way that doesn’t always translate immediately to a league obsessed with size and physicality. Breaking in at 19 means absorbing lessons in real time, often publicly, sometimes painfully. The NHL doesn’t coddle. It tests.
But Huska has been consistent: the offense will come if the foundation is solid. Tuesday was proof of concept.
“The pressure gets put on him from outside sources at times,” Huska added. “What he is doing, though, is learning to be more of a complete player. And I think he’s done an excellent job with that.”
Gridin, who set up the goal, couldn’t hide his relief either. “It’s good Zayne finally scored his first goal of the season—we were all waiting for that, and he was so happy,” the winger said. Then he added something that felt bigger than one game. “Hopefully we’ll play for, like, 15 more years together, and generate a lot.”
That’s the vision Calgary is chasing through this rebuild. Not a quick fix. Not a veteran band-aid. A group of kids who grow up together, fail together, eventually win together. The Flames currently sit near the bottom of the Western Conference, according to NHL standings, and a four-game winning streak does nothing for draft lottery odds. But it does something for morale, for belief, for the kind of culture that separates teams that rebuild successfully from those that flounder.
Winning, even in a lost season, creates a healthier environment. A 2021 report from the Sport Psychology journal found that early-career athletes who experience success in supportive environments show greater long-term resilience and performance consistency. Calgary’s young core needs that. They need to know what winning feels like, what it takes, how to close out tight games when the pressure mounts.
Right now, they’re getting those reps. Parekh and Gridin on the ice together in overtime. Sharangovich accidentally sealing the deal in the shootout. A locker room that can laugh at the absurdity while celebrating the substance underneath.
“Sky high,” Gridin said when asked about his confidence. He smiled when he admitted to being “really good” in overtime the night before against Tampa. That’s not arrogance. That’s a kid who’s been trusted and is starting to believe it.
Parekh echoed the sentiment. “He trusts me in those situations, and it means a lot to me,” he said of Huska. “Hopefully the three of us keep ending up on the sheet together.”
Four straight wins won’t change Calgary’s season trajectory. They’re still rebuilding, still losing more than winning, still closer to a top-five pick than a playoff spot. But culture isn’t built in standings. It’s built in moments like these—when a coach chooses growth over caution, when a 19-year-old gets his first goal in crunch time, when teammates mob each other over a puck that tumbled in by accident but felt like destiny.
The Flames aren’t winning a championship this year. They’re not supposed to. But they are learning how to win, which is different. They’re learning what it feels like when preparation meets opportunity, when trust gets rewarded, when the kids you’ve invested in start paying dividends.
Sharangovich’s blooper-reel winner will make highlight reels for all the wrong reasons. But Parekh’s goal, Gridin’s assist, Huska’s faith in his young core—those are the headlines that matter. Those are the building blocks.
The punchline was fluky. The story underneath was real. And in Calgary, where the future is still taking shape, that’s exactly what winning is supposed to look like right now.
