The Flames are only slightly better in home openers than season openers

The Calgary Flames haven’t been great in season opening games over the past decade. They’ve been better over the past 10 years in their first games at the Scotiabank Saddledome, but only slightly.

Earlier this week, we looked at the Flames’ record in the first game of the season. It wasn’t pretty. Here’s how they fared in the first home games of the past few seasons.

Over the past nine home opening games, the Flames have a 3-5-1 record. They were riding a six game losing skid before turning it around over the past two seasons.

In terms of consistency and patterns, there’s not a ton for the Flames in home openers. Johnny Gaudreau has scored in back-to-back years, while Sean Monahan and Michael Frolik have scored in two of the last three openers.

Between the pipes? More chaos. Whoever starts tonight – David Rittich or Cam Talbot – they’ll be the sixth different goaltender to start a home opener in the past seven years. Since Miikka Kiprusoff retired, the Flames have tried out Joey MacDonald, Jonas Hiller, Karri Ramo, Brian Elliott and Mike Smith in the home opener. They’re hoping that they can finally grab some consistency.