The Calgary Flames began their final regular season of hockey at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Thursday night against the Seattle Kraken, and it was a game they would all probably prefer to forget.

The Flames got out to a promising start after an in-arena video hyping up the Saddledome’s final season, player introductions and the national anthems. But they soon stumbled, allowing a pair of goals mid-way through the first period and never really recovering en route to a 6-1 home setback to Seattle.

“I thought we had a decent first few minutes of the game,” said forward Ryan Strome. “We had a good start and then kind of just unravelled. So, yeah, it’s disappointing. I think that we’re a team that can’t really make any mistakes. We’ve got to play hard. We’ve got to play simple. And obviously the end result of getting away from that was what you saw tonight.”

After noting that the team was “pissed off” about how the game unfolded – Zach Whitecloud later used the term “embarrassing” when speaking to the media – Strome elaborated on what he think led to the game getting away from the Flames against Seattle.

“You’re not going to win every night,” said Strome. “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.”

Asked if the two quick Seattle goals in the first period – scored just 32 seconds apart on consecutive shifts – deflated the Flames, Strome offered a fairly nuanced answer.

“I mean, maybe, but at the end of the day, there’s 60 minutes, right?” said Strome. “I mean, I even thought in the second period we had a bunch of really good penalty kills. Wolfie 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 [head coach Ryan Huska] 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 there can make some plays but most of us got to do simple stuff. And when you get away from it and you play loose like that and, I mean, it was just it was just ugly.”

During his post-game press conference, Huska discussed how the game got away from his team.

“I feel like you saw all of our warts in one night,” said Huska. “You can say it from the management of the puck that it’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, they’ve got to come out of their comfort zone and can’t just do things they want to do. And we saw that tonight and we got it handed to us.”

The Flames failed to score on their lone power play, with zero shots on their man advantage. The Kraken had five power plays, scoring on their first man advantage. Both Whitecloud and Strome were asked about how the penalties contributed to the loss.

“We win as a team, we lose as a team,” said Whitecloud. “But obviously if you take five or six penalties a game, it’s going to be tough to win in the NHL.”

“I’m sure the refs were dying to give them a penalty to kind of make it a little more even,” said Strome. “And we couldn’t even draw a penalty. So, yeah, you’ve got to be more disciplined. We’ve got to be simple. We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot over and over again, and that’s kind of the story of the night.”

Four penalty kills in the second period seemed to disrupt the flow of the Flames’ bench, though Huska noted that player performance factored in as much as the penalties did.

“Well, there are certain guys that didn’t deserve to be on the ice regularly, penalty kill aside,” said Huska. “Let’s be honest with the way this game was played tonight. I thought the penalty kill on the second period did a really good job to keep it close, really. I mean, the defencemen, our penalty kill forwards for that stretch of the night, they did an excellent job there. We need more from other guys that are non-penalty kill forwards.”

There’s 83 games remaining in the season for the Flames to put better outings together. But the first evening of the season left a bad taste that should serve to motivate them moving forward.

“We win together, we lose together,” said Whitecloud. “That one in front of our home crowd, opening night last year of the Dome, unacceptable. And we have to hold each other accountable for that and what the result was. And we will. And we’ll move forward from it. We’ll learn from it and make sure something like that doesn’t happen again. And, you know, if things start to get out of hand like that, we have to dig ourselves out of that and come together as a group.”

The Flames return to action this weekend, with back-to-back road games on Saturday against the Vancouver Canucks and a Sunday rematch against the Kraken.