"You saw all of our warts in one night," head coach Ryan Huska says after the Flames fall 6-1 to kick off the final season at the Saddledome.

Zach Whitecloud called it embarrassing. Ryan Strome said the way the Calgary Flames played at the end of their season opener was demoralizing. Ryan Huska felt like all his team’s warts were on display for the world to see.

On a night that started with a thundering ceremony to kick off the Flames’ final season at the Saddledome, the game itself was a huge letdown. The final scoreline, with the Flames losing 6-1 to the Seattle Kraken, was no less than either team deserved.

“That one, in front of our home crowd on opening night, last year at the Dome, unacceptable,” defenceman Whitecloud said. “We have to hold ourselves accountable for that and what the result was. We will.”*

There were very few positives on Thursday night. The Flames were simply outplayed. They got away from their game and paid heavily for it, the details deserting them and the Kraken taking advantage.

The Flames talk often about needing to play a simple game. Go to the net, move the puck, stick to the system. They didn’t do any of that in their home opener.

“It’s not the way you want to start a season, I will say that for sure,” head coach Huska said. “I feel like you saw all of our warts in one night. The management of the puck that’s been an issue for us for a while, the penalties that we took, there’s a lot that showed up tonight and we talked a lot about our group has to come out of their comfort zone. They can’t just do the things they want to do and we saw that tonight and we got it handed to us.”

There’s really no way to sugarcoat Thursday’s performance. Professional hockey players are never in a good mood when they lose, but the Flames seemed genuinely angry with the performance they put out on the ice on what could have been a special night.

“I’m disappointed for the fans and for us because I know that’s not the product we want to put on the ice,” said Strome, who scored the Flames’ only goal. “Especially in such a memorable season, I think. You’re not going to win every night. We’re going to have some tough ones. We’re going to have some ups and downs, but I think the work ethic and the compete and the non-negotiables slipped away, and that’s unacceptable, and I’m sure that’ll be corrected. Obviously, we’re not naive that we can play much better than that.”

So what went wrong on Thursday against the Kraken? Here are three takeaways:

The Flames took six penalties in their season opener, and you’re just not going to win many games when you’re playing shorthanded that often.

The second period was particularly egregious, with Joel Farabee getting sent to the box twice and both Adam Klapka and Kevin Bahl earning themselves two minutes in the sin bin.

“We had two pre-season games and you know that’s not but the NHL, especially earlier in the year, most of us have been around. They call the games tight,” Strome said. “You can’t hold. You can’t slash. You can’t grab. I didn’t get a great look at the penalties, but at the end of the day, the referees are good referees. 

“They’re in the best league in the world. I’m sure they’re penalties, and we didn’t move our feet to create any chances, either. I’m sure the refs were dying to give them a penalty to kind of make it a little more even, and we couldn’t even draw a penalty. So, yeah, you’ve got to be more disciplined.”

The play of the Flames’ penalty-killing unit was one of the few positives of the evening.

Jordan Eberle did get the Kraken a power-play goal to open the game’s scoring, but the Flames otherwise were able to survive their shorthanded situations unscathed.

After Eberle opened the scoring just over nine minutes into the game, the Flames barely had a chance to catch their breath before Vince Dunn made it 2-0 just 32 seconds later. By the end of the first period, Frederick Gaudreau had netted another for the Kraken.

Those two quick goals seemed to deflate the Flames and the response was certainly a concern. Or maybe it’s more that it felt like there wasn’t a response.

“At the end of the day, there’s 60 minutes, right?” Strome said. “I mean, I even though in the second period we had a bunch of really good penalty kills. Wolfie (goaltender Dustin Wolf) was playing spectacular and just couldn’t get anything going and you know it’s going to be simple for our team. 

“I mean I’m sure Husk will talk about it, but it’s going to be straight lines. It’s going to be simple hockey and, you know, we have a couple guys here and they can make some plays. But most of us have to do simple stuff. And when you get away from it and you play loose like that and, I mean, it was just ugly.”

Look, Wolf won’t be happy to have let in six goals on 32 shots.

But this result doesn’t fall on his shoulders. The scoreline could have been even worse if he hadn’t come up with some spectacular saves and when the Flames review the video from Thursday’s game, they’ll focus on the guys in front of him.

Beyond that, though, there weren’t many positives. Simon Nemec had his moments, as did fellow blueliner Zayne Parekh in the offensive zone, although he finished with a minus-3.

But there’s no use searching for silver linings. The Flames need to be a lot better on Saturday against the Vancouver Canucks.