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Beyond the Boxscore: Flames lose plenty of battles all over the ice in 6-1 home-opener loss to Kraken

Photo credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images

By Flash Stevens

Oct 2, 2026, 10:00 EDTUpdated: Oct 2, 2026, 09:52 EDT

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The Calgary Flames were soft on the puck too often in their opener, falling 6-1 at the hands of the visiting Seattle Kraken.

CF% – 47.73% || SCF% – 41.87% || HDCF% – 37.94% || xGF% – 38.36%

It’s a Team Game – The Calgary Flames showed up on time, that’s for sure. The issues came around 10 minutes in, when the Kraken started finding some sustained success in the attacking zone. Calgary had their counters, but the Kraken kept earning grade A chances due to lapses in coverage in the Flames own zone. Too often the Flames found themselves losing a puck battle, or not being strong enough on the puck and having it stolen. Wolf, despite letting in six goals, had to make plenty of 5-star saves all night long. It was an unstructured mess in their own zone, but at least that was paired with a stretched neutral zone attack and some creative passing down below the goal line. There were some positives

Corsi King – The most overall 5v5 shot attempts went to the guy who became the number one funnel for offence down significantly in the third period. Zayne Parekh (54.26 CF%) has a natural nose for the net, and uses his top tier skating and threatening shot to hold defences at bay while opening up either shooting or passing lanes. He stood out in a big way on opening night, which was not the case for most. Connor Zary (57.36%) was the ratio leader up front. He was moving through the crowd more smoothly in this one than he was to end last year. If he can get back to the version of Zary from a couple years ago that had the confidence to try and dance with the puck it would be a big positive for the Flames.

Under Pressure –

Taken By Chance – Simon Nemec (42.36 SCF% // 51.94 HDCF%) paced the Flames in high danger opportunities with partner Kevin Bahl (48.53% // 59.04%). Just like everyone else there were some good and bad, but I did see Nemec make some massively creative plays in the offensive zone, including one where he put it right on the tape of his winger at the goal line. Common theme that’s been occurring since Parekh (37.11% // 26.24%) started last year – sometimes the forwards just aren’t ready for these passes. That’s fine, I’d rather they keep occurring. The forwards will get in sync with their creative offence back-end options more as the season goes on.

xG Breakdown –

xGF% – The 4th line got cooked in this one, and it was pretty bad. New Flame Maxim Tsyplakov (14.34%) got his pocket picked in glaring fashion and continually lost battles to try and get the puck out of the defensive zone. By no means is he the primary fault here, it was just a rough debut. Mikael Backlund (35.07%) and his line struggled to push the pace. He did get a chance to let the Backlund signature break-in move out, but it was gloved down by the Seattle netminder.

The standout here is Matvei Gridin (52.96%) because he was the only one who finished above 50% in the quality share. He only saw one goal against, whereas the majority of the team saw at least two against. No points and the team struggled to really get the puck on his stick. However, the defensive acumen he displayed is the reason he finds more opportunity than his peers. Turnovers into aggressive offence, if his linemates can work with that he won’t just find success, he’ll create it.

Game Flow –

Shot Heatmap –

In The Crease – Poor Wolf, I genuinely feel bad. The amount of traffic and in-tight chances he had to stop was… brutal. He had defenders colliding at bluelines, blown coverages, power plays against and so much more. Even with some of the extremely athletic saves we are used to seeing he was still beat regularly. Five goals at 5v5 is never good, even if the team is bad. He can only be one part of the puzzle, there’s going to be nights where it just doesn’t work. Too bad night one fell under that umbrella.

The Goals –

Flash’s 3 Stars –

1) Zayne Parekh

2) Ryan Strome

3) Matvei Gridin

Note: Sixth year back doing these, and I couldn’t be happier! More views from inside the ‘Dome this year, as we say farewell to our beloved hockey home when the season closes. Hop in and follow along, it’s always fun (to me, anyways).

(Stats compiled from Naturalstattrick.com // Game Score from Hockeystatcards.com // xG and Under Pressure charts from HockeyViz.com // Game Flow and Shot Heatmap from NaturalStatTrick.com)

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