Heading into the 2022-23 National Hockey League regular season, there were actually high expectations for the Calgary Flames. Despite the fact the franchise lost two of their star players from last season (Johnny Gaudreau via free agency to Columbus and Matt Tkachuk in a trade with Florida), there was a belief that the acquisitions of Jonathan Huberdeau, Nazem Kadri and MacKenzie Weegar would have actually made this team better than the previous year when they won the Pacific Division.
Well, the 2022-23 Calgary Flames actually took a gigantic step backwards, and you could make the argument that this year’s Calgary Flames was the NHL’s biggest disappointment. A repeat performance of last year’s 111 points might have been a challenge, but few would have expected Calgary to have an 18-point drop from the year before, and miss the postseason altogether.
On Wednesday, in a meaningless game at the Scotiabank Saddledome, the Flames came away with a 3-1 win over the San Jose Sharks, and it was a significant contest for their defenseman, Nikita Zadorov of Moscow, Russia, who notched the first hat trick of his NHL career.
How and When Zadorov recorded his hat trick
Zadorov tied the game at one at 13:36 of the second period from Andrew Mangiapane of Toronto, Ontario and Mikael Backlund of Vasteras, Sweden. He then scored the game-winning goal at 4:01 of the third period to put the Flames up 2-1. Zadorov scored from Weegar and Kadri. Then with one minute left, Zadorov closed out the scoring with an empty netter.
2022-23 NHL Statistics
In 82 games this season, Zadorov had 14 goals and seven assists for 21 points. He was a +10 with 80 penalty minutes, one power-play point, two game-winning goals, 130 shots on goal, 75 blocked shots, 174 hits, 31 takeaways and 57 giveaways. Zadorov’s lone power-play point was a power-play assist on a goal by Adam Ruzicka of Bratislava, Slovakia in a 5-4 Flames win over the Florida Panthers on November 19, 2022. Zadorov’s other game-winning goal came on January 27 in a 5-2 Flames win over the Seattle Kraken from Elias Limdholm of Boden, Sweden and Weegar.
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