Blake Coleman scored his 30th goal, and MacKenzie Weegar scored his 20th, as the Calgary Flames defeated the San Jose Sharks 5-1 on Thursday night in the final game of the season for both teams.
Weegar had never scored more than eight goals in a season before. His achievement of 20 goals tied him for third among defensemen, trailing only Roman Josi (23) and Cale Makar (21).
“After I scored, just the sincerity of the congratulations from everybody. When they come up to you after, and they say how proud they are of you and the little things like that, it goes a long way for me,” Weegar said.
For Calgary coach Ryan Huska, Weegar’s accomplishment was particularly impressive because he became the first NHL player to score 20 goals while also blocking 200 shots.
“That’s the hard part of the game,” Huska said. “Where over and over you’re doing it again and again, and you’re not feeling good, and you put yourself in those positions, and you continually play through it.
“When you look at MacKenzie, you’d have to say he was one of our more consistent players this year. So I thought he did a good job leadership-wise, offense from the back end for us. But then you have the intangibles that he brings. He’s a competitor.”
Adam Klapka scored his first NHL goal, and Oliver Kylington and Kevin Rooney also scored for Calgary (38-39-5). The Flames missed the playoffs for the second straight season.
Dustin Wolf made 16 saves but lost his shutout bid with nine seconds left in the game. The 23-year-old rookie ended the season with four straight wins and a record of 7-7-1.
Fabian Zetterlund scored for San Jose (19-54-9), which finished with the worst record in the NHL. The Sharks have missed the playoffs for the last five seasons.
Mikael Granlund had an assist and ended the season with a 13-game point streak (two goals, 13 assists).
Sharks starting goaltender Devin Cooley was pulled for the second straight game. After giving up eight goals on 22 shots on Monday in Edmonton, Cooley (2-3-1) allowed five goals on 23 shots before being replaced by Georgi Romanov (14 saves).
“It’s just tough to end like that. It’s just not the way we wanted to go out,” Sharks defenseman Kyle Burroughs said. Calgary took a two-goal lead in the first period, scoring twice in three minutes.
