Flames 5, Maple Leafs 2: Gridin Twice, Matthews to 800

October 26, 2026 - Calgary - Matvei Gridin snapped one from below the left dot, top corner, blocker side. Scotiabank Saddledome had 1-0 at 10:05 of the first. Mikael Backlund scored 1:45 later. Gridin scored again 25 seconds into the second. Toronto had won eight straight against Calgary. That streak ended in the last game at this building.

The Calgary Flames beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-2. Calgary is 5-6-0, four in a row, 4-0-0 on the homestand. Toronto is 7-5-2 after four straight wins. Shots were 34-28 Calgary. Attendance was 18,476. Gridin, Backlund, Martin Pospisil, Simon Nemec, Zayne Parekh, Yan Kuznetsov, Troy Stecher, and Sergei Bobrovsky are not seeded on AthX player pages, so those names stay unlinked. The Maple Leafs recap listed Bobrovsky at 30 saves on 33 shots. The NHL box is 29 saves on 32. That is the line AthX Engine scored.

Gridin had two goals and an assist, his first three-point NHL game. Joel Farabee had a goal and an assist. Pospisil had a goal and an assist. Matt Coronato and Nemec each had two assists. Devin Cooley stopped 26 of 28 and assisted on Gridin's power-play goal. Easton Cowan and William Nylander scored. Auston Matthews assisted on Nylander's goal for his 800th NHL point (437 goals, 363 assists). Bobrovsky made his 800th NHL start.

Two in 105 seconds, then a kid having fun

Gridin told NHL.com it starts with playing the right way, and then they can afford to do some fun stuff with the puck. Four in a row, he said, and keep doing that. Calgary coach Ryan Huska told NHL.com they look faster because they are simpler, and you can see the confidence grow.

Backlund had missed two games with an upper-body injury. He took a cross-ice pass from Coronato at 11:50 and beat Bobrovsky over the blocker from the left circle. 2-0. The NHL recap put him at 609 career points, tied with Johnny Gaudreau for fifth in Flames history. Backlund told NHL.com they wanted to quiet the Leafs fans and make it their building.

Parekh assisted on Gridin's second, a far-side wrister from the left circle 25 seconds into the second, Cooley the other helper. 3-0. Parekh told NHL.com Gridin is just a kid having fun, and the team is having fun. Huska called the shot a strength: he gets it off quickly, and it is hard. The NHL recap said Gridin, 20, is the first Flames player 20 or younger with a three-point game since Matthew Tkachuk on Dec. 4, 2018.

Kirill Marchenko left in the second with a lower-body injury and did not return. He took a hit from Yegor Sharangovich, fell awkwardly, played one more 14-second shift, and left. Toronto coach Jim Hiller told NHL.com he did not have the full update, and that Marchenko could not finish, which is never a good sign.

Cowan, then 800, then two empty nets

Cowan redirected a slap pass from Stecher at 12:54. Morgan Rielly had the other assist. 3-1. Cowan told NHL.com his second and third periods were good, and that is how he has to play.

Nylander made it 3-2 at 6:06 of the third. Jack Roslovic found him across the crease. Matthews the other helper, point No. 800 in 703 games, fastest in Maple Leafs history. Darryl Sittler had done it in 742 games on Nov. 15, 1980, the NHL recap said. Matthews is the second-fastest U.S.-born player to 800, behind Pat LaFontaine's 664 games.

Matthews told NHL.com Calgary got to its game quickly and played simple, and Toronto got loose with the puck halfway through the first. Bobrovsky told NHL.com three goals is tough to recover from, but the group did not open up or cheat the game in the third. Hiller told NHL.com they turned the puck over way too much, and you cannot win in the League if you do that.

Farabee scored into the empty net at 18:35 from Coronato and Kuznetsov. Pospisil closed it at 19:21 from Gridin and Nemec. 5-2. The Associated Press recap said Calgary had not beaten Toronto since Feb. 10, 2022.

The Flames site listed Calgary at 35 shots. The NHL box is 34-28. We scored the box.

AthX Engine on a 14.50 night in the last game at the Saddledome

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) scored Gridin at 14.50 (two goals, one assist, five shots, one block, one power-play bonus). Farabee is 7.70. Pospisil is 7.20. Coronato is 6.20. Nylander is 5.90. Nemec is 5.60. Cooley's win, 26 saves, and two goals against land at 11.00. Bobrovsky is 8.00 on 29 saves and three goals against.

Calgary's team line is 21.00. Toronto's 2-5 floors at 0.00.

Fantasy points measure the box. Price is what traders will pay for a Flames group on a four-game run, and for a Maple Leafs club that just watched Matthews hit 800 in a loss. They are not the same number.

Track Gridin, Cooley, Matthews, and both clubs on the marketplace. Calgary visits Edmonton on Wednesday. Toronto visits Seattle that night.

*Sources: AP recap (ESPN), ESPN box score, NHL.com recap, NHL.com scoreboard, ESPN NHL scoreboard. AthX Engine fantasy points scored from NHL gamecenter box 2026020186. Information only; not financial advice.*