Dustin Wolf’s mastery at Saddledome comes at crucial time fo…

CALGARY — With his club leading the Stanley Cup champions 2-0 with 15 minutes remaining, Dustin Wolf faced a situation where the youngster thrived.

A Calgary Flames miscue on a line change allowed Sam Bennett to charge alone from the blue line, ready to cut the Flames’ lead in half and break the netminder’s shutout.

“Great moment,” Flames coach Ryan Huska said.

“If Sam scores there, it’s 2-1 and it’s a big save too. It’s not an easy move when Sam is fast because Sam is scoring now.

“He’s a dangerous player and if you think of the turning points in the game, this was definitely one of them. It just so happened that the defender (Mikael Backlund) scored shortly after.”

The save was one of 32 Wolfe had to make to secure his second NHL shutout, helping his club beat the Florida Panthers 3-0 on Saturday.

“I think he kind of likes it, but I’ll never complain about that,” laughed the 23-year-old goaltender, who improved his record to 9-5-1.

“Any time you can make a save in the third period, or a breakout save in general, you hope it builds momentum for your team.”

The Flames have been struggling of late, losing seven of their previous nine games and falling to the Tampa Bay Lightning 8-3 on Thursday.

The Flames need to stop the bleeding, and so does Wolfe, who has lost his last three starts, including a 6-2 loss in Dallas a week ago, prompting sweeping changes from the superstitious netminder.

“You know what, I came home from Dallas, bought all new gear, changed my clothes, came to the rink and played hockey,” Wolfe said, admitting he needed a confidence boost.

“Of course, absolutely. I haven’t been at my best the past few times, but that’s the way hockey goes sometimes.

“Every time you get the next opportunity, you want to make the most of it.”

That says a lot about Wolfe’s performance in his rookie season, that he was trustworthy in key moments when the flames seemed to be starting to fade.

It not only made sense to him, but to everyone else in the room of flames.

“There are a few guys here who played there a few years ago and Lombo (Ryan Lomberg) got his ring yesterday and it was a big night and I’m sure he’s very excited to play against his old team. ,” said Wolff, who was defeated in the duel. Spencer Knight, his World Junior Championship double partner.

“That’s a good group over there. I think that should give our team confidence that we can hang with those teams.”

Nothing seemed to instill more confidence in this team when Wolff started at the Dome, where he posted an 8-1 record, a 1.65 GAA and a .949 save percentage. The best in the league.

The wild success could come in handy before Christmas, as the Flames have three more games before the holidays.

With Dan Vladar listed on the day-to-day practice list with a minor lower-body injury and could return to practice as early as Monday, it’s not ridiculous to think Wolff could get all three starts.

“That’s the kind of goaltender he is, especially this year at home, where he’s had the lights out,” said Blake Coleman, who took responsibility for the turnovers Wolfe had to cover up.

“If you made a mistake, he was there and had your back.”

It’s a good feeling for a team that’s been challenged offensively and can only win low-scoring games.

Backlund and Coleman reunited after a failed experiment, with both scoring in one game and Nazeem Kadri also scoring in his third straight game (nice).

That was enough for Wolfe.

“Well, we’ve just beaten the cup winners so that shows we’ve got some fight in this group and there’s some knocks against us,” said Coleman, whose club are back to a tight-checking, defensively sound club. .

“We’ve been saying all year if we play like this we can beat anybody and we’re very confident in that.

“It’s a tough game of hockey, so you’d be lying if you said you could play all 82 games. But if you can keep it up for 80 percent of the games, you’re giving yourself a fight Opportunity to be in an important position at a critical moment.”