Why Joel Farabee's ever-growing importance to Flames is more obvious than ever

Just over a year ago, on Oct. 21, 2025, if we’re being precise, Joel Farabee was openly frustrated with his struggles finding the back of the net.

He was doing everything right, but described feeling like there was a “dark cloud” hanging over him — the puck just wouldn’t go in.

If you were only paying attention to his numbers, you might wonder if Farabee wasn’t feeling something similar before he scored his first goal of the 2026-27 season on Thursday night against the Minnesota Wild.

But no, that’s just not the case. 

“It’s kind of the story of my career, everyone says ‘Oh, you’re getting chances, you’re getting chances,’“ Farabee said. “I feel like mentally with where I’m at (compared) to earlier in my career, you’ve got to feel good about certain parts of the game. For me, I try to focus on PK stuff and defensive stuff and I know if I’m doing that stuff well, the offence is going to come.

“You have to trust that in the back of your mind.”

After Thursday’s big win over the Wild and Farabee’s game-winner, the 26-year-old is now sitting tied with Matt Coronato and Morgan Frost for the Flames’ team lead in points, with six, and there’s every reason to believe there’s more to come.

While he might have gotten off to a slow start last year and didn’t score his first goal until the Flames’ 11th game of the season, it pretty much has been all positives ever since.

That first goal of 2025-26 was scored on Oct. 28 and, in the nearly full year since, Farabee has scored 21 goals and added 20 assists in 81 games. Only Coronato and Frost have managed more for the Flames over that timeframe.

The Flames ask Farabee to do a lot more than just put up points, but his production has been solid.

“Joel started that way last year but he’s been around it a lot again and has had a lot of chances,” Flames head coach Ryan Huska said. “As long as the chances are coming from him, he’s a bit of a streaky scorer so we’re anticipating this will open the floodgates.”

It is worth noting, too, that Farabee is on the Flames’ top penalty-killing unit and is used largely in a shutdown role alongside Mikael Backlund. It speaks to his ever-growing importance to the team that on Thursday, with the captain out with a minor injury, Farabee had more ice-time than any other forward on the roster. 

He played 18:51 against the Wild, with much of it coming against Minnesota’s best-in-class offensive stars. That he scored the game-winner merely put an exclamation point on the fact that Farabee has become one of the Flames’ most important players.

The days of dark clouds are long past.

“I think he’s very comfortable with where he’s at now and understands the value he brings to the team,” Huska said. “I think he’s in a very good place.”