"They came pretty hard," Johnson said. "They got pucks in deep. They use the momentum there.
"They had a little extra, a little more want at the end of the night there.
"They played really good defensively. It was really hard to get good looks, shots on Hellebuyck and if we did have anything he was making the saves. I just thought they played harder."
Hellebuyck's shutout ended Matthew Tkachuk's point streak at nine games. It is still the longest by a Flames rookie since Joe Nieuwendyk had points in 16 consecutive games during the 1987-88 season.
Byfuglien scored midway through the first period. He dashed around Flames captain Mark Giordano before snapping a shot by Johnson to put the Jets up 1-0 at 10:21.
"You want to stop everything," Johnson said. "That's your job as a goalie, is to stop every shot. It doesn't always happen that way.
"He caught me leaning there a little bit. Pulled it a little bit and I came off the post. He put it up top there.
"After the fact you can always evaluate it and say you should make the save or could make the save. It's easy after to say you could make the save. In the moment you try to play it as you can and give your team a chance to win as best you can."
Johnson stopped Nikolaj Ehlers on a partial breakaway midway through the second for one of his 12 saves in the period, and Hellebuyck poke checked Johnny Gaudreau on a breakaway with less than a minute remaining in the middle period.
Wheeler scored 3:16 into the third period, stealing a turnover by TJ Brodie and snapping a shot by Johnson's glove to put Winnipeg up 2-0.
"It's frustrating," Brodie said. "It's definitely not what I planned on happening but at the end of the day it's over with. The more you think about it the more it affects you."
Johnson made a save off Mark Scheifele's shot from the slot at 8:15, and stopped Scheifele again with 2:47 remaining to keep Calgary within two.
Hellebuyck made a glove save on Michael Frolik with 12.5 seconds remaining to preserve the shutout.
"I thought on the first goal they made a good play," Gulutzan said. "Good play at the blue line and good drive by [Byfuglien] and a nice goal. I thought they did a good job. Those things happen in the game. The other one … we gave it to them and they capitalized.
"But we had some chances. We didn't capitalize.
"We had some chances where we didn't execute.
"That was the difference."
NOTES: Frolik and Kris Versteeg led the Flames with four shots each. Brodie paced Calgary with 27:38 of ice time. Matt Stajan won 63 percent of his draws, and Sean Monahan finished at 59 percent. The Flames recalled Brett Kulak from Stockon of the American Hockey League and sent down defenceman Tyler Wotherspoon on Monday. Kulak and forward Freddie Hamilton were scratched against the Jets.
UP NEXT: The Flames host the San Jose Sharks at Scotiabank Saddledome on Wednesday (7:30 PM MT; SN, SN1, SN960)
