Neither Dustin Wolf or Devin Cooley has had the start they want this season as both Calgary Flames goalies have struggled.

Neither Dustin Wolf or Devin Cooley has had the start they want this season.

Both Calgary Flames goalies have struggled, with Wolf allowing 12 goals in two games and Cooley sitting on 10 goals-against after Thursday’s 7-3 loss to the Colorado Avalanche.

The Flames have issues that go well beyond goaltending, but the play between the pipes is going to need to be better if they have any chance of turning their 0-4-0 start around.

And the goalies know it.

“I’ll tell you what, we’ve given up too many goals, that’s the bottom line,” Wolf said. “I think sometimes we can laugh about it, but our objective is to get points and we’re not doing a good enough job, I’m not doing a good enough job of helping our team do that.

“I think this week has been a blessing in disguise for days between games to get back to the way I want to play and the group wants to play.”

While Wolf and Cooley both are trying to find the best versions of themselves on the ice and are helping each other out with that process, they’re different people and have different approaches to the early season struggles.

They’re both dissecting as much video as possible, something that Wolf prioritized going into the summer, but it will be unsurprising to anyone who has followed the Flames for the past year that Cooley is doing his best to keep things as positive as possible.

Part of that is just his personality and the way he approaches every bad game as a learning opportunity, but Cooley’s relentless positivity is meant to improve his performance on the ice, as well.

“During the game is the most important for me because I have to find the humour in my mistakes because otherwise I will internalize it and it will grow and make me angry and upset, and you do not want me like that playing goalie,” Cooley explained. “After we got stuck in the zone (in the second period on Thursday) and they scored from the point without a screen and it just went post and in, it was brutal, horrible, maybe the worst goal of my career.

“We’re watching it on video and Dustin’s watching it with me and I was like ‘Man, at least all your goals have been Grade A’s, I’m getting beat clean from the point.’

“Finding the humour in it is really important for me, that way I can move on. Obviously it’s a mistake and you don’t want that to happen and you feel like you’re letting people down, but if you internalize that it’s just going to gnaw at you and you’re not going to be able to move on and that’s just going to make me feel worse mentally and perform worse.”

Wolf’s approach is a little different. It’s clear that he isn’t happy with his performances so far this season. There aren’t always quick fixes for goalies, but he was grateful for a lighter game schedule this week that allowed him to hone in on some of the areas where he feels he can improve.

That starts with the rush, where he feels he has been beat too often this season. He credited his teammates for their solid D-zone coverage in the games he has played, but spent the week working on his positioning and movement on rush chances. 

“Everything coming off the rush has been, not new, but more volume, so maybe a little more difficult,” Wolf explained. “Just watching video and seeing how I can approach it a little differently on rush chances.

“That’s been my objective all week, is to replicate that as much as I can so that when I get back in there I can feel more comfortable and confident in that scenario.”