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Beyond the Boxscore: Flames continue to search for answers (and goals) after blowout loss to Seattle

Photo credit: Kevin Ng-Imagn Images

By Flash Stevens

Oct 5, 2026, 10:00 EDTUpdated: Oct 5, 2026, 09:28 EDT

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The Calgary Flames continued their legendary opening season struggle, losing to the Seattle Kraken 6-1 for the second time this season – and it’s only game three.

CF% – 53.91%|| SCF% – 54.08%|| HDCF% – 50.38%|| xGF% – 61.48%

It’s a Team Game – It feels weird to say, because they obviously got blown out, but that was better than the first game at least. That’s more a reflection of how incredibly low the bar is right now than anything else, but a positive? It’s three games into the season, one in which we knew the Calgary Flames were intentionally rebuilding. Losing was expected, but losing in the fashion they have is excessive no matter what the gameplan for the season is.

Ryan Huska’s post-game comments caught my attention – as he continually used the narrative and messaging of “staying on script”. I’m curious if this team, derived of depth and the ability to finish chances (for the third straight year, regardless of personnel), can stick to his “script” and still score. It may help them resist goals against, but the old way of playing clearly did not work.

Why? Because the Calgary Flames did a tremendous job of generating dangerous, offensive chances in this game. Look at the final score all you want, that does not mean they never pushed Joey Daccord to his limits. They have 12 forwards and the best finisher they got is probably best suited for a second line role. Throw in aging players, guys leaned on as 3rd defence elsewhere yet being in prime roles here, and the teams desperate attempt to keep guys who were waiver claims and you can see the lack of finishing ability quite clearly. So even on nights like this one – where they won the 5v5 high danger battle 14-13 – it still doesn’t pay off like it should.

That’s just who the Calgary Flames are, and have been, for awhile now.

Corsi King – Yegor Sharangovich (65.26 CF%) paced the way for the Flames in shot attempt disparity, going 20 for and 11 against. The most in the whole game for the Flames was 29 positive attempts and that belonged to Simon Nemec (56.27%). It’s worth explaining a bit, these numbers aren’t off the players stick directly, it just means they were deployed while the shot attempt occurred. The defence has not had problems helping the offence generate shots, they’ve had the problem defending in their own zone. There have been a lot of grade A shots go against the Flames in the first three games, from a lot of blown coverages. So it’s nice the offence is occurring, but the coach’s comments do show he’s done with this. The Flames don’t play again until Thursday – I’m very curious what kind of product we get on the ice for that game.

Under Pressure –

Taken By Chance – Curiosity is a big theme here – with how disastrous the first three games have been it’s had me asking a lot of how and why questions all around this team. Such as – how is it that Joel Farabee (65.90 SCF% // 79.02 HDCF%) has the leash he has. I remember, prior to the start of last season, I was wondering if he was a piece they needed to ship out. He won me over, but now I’m asking myself why. What about the 20 goals – was that his norm or was it more an inflated shooting percentage? This is what aggressive losing does – it puts everything that is currently going on into a larger spotlight because the focus certainly isn’t on the wins. So here’s a debate question for the week – do you think Joel Farabee can actually be an effective top 6 forward, or is he more of a 3rd line guy who is being given more opportunity from a team that lacks other talent?

After three years where trying to score has been more difficult than getting your teeth yanked out it just leads me to wonder about how many guys are playing in roles above what would make them effective. Like I said earlier, they clearly got their chances in this one, just as they did in the first two games as well, so why can’t they finish? That part isn’t coaching, that’s on the players.

xG Breakdown –

xGF% – I always give credit where its due – I saw Mike Gould tweet out the Maxim Tsyplakov (52.49%) experiment should stop. I’ve been passive aggressively commenting on it for two games, but I’ll just join Mike on that take – it’s just got to stop. The defensive mistakes coming off this players stick – if you do not take him out now then any further disciplinary choices to anyone else in the room hold less weight. There’s learning how to play with your teammates and just making bad mistakes that are avoidable, his reel so far would be filled with the latter. Last year he was cast off two separate teams and none he’s here, in the way of a younger asset like Othmann getting some more reps. This is about the future, let’s focus on players that have a non-zero chance to be here when the future arrives. Shout out Matt Coronato (60.55%) who got some nice looks and avoided being on the ice for any of the 5v5 goals against. At least that was a glaring positive.

Game Flow –

Shot Heatmap –

In The Crease – Dustin Wolf has had a brutal start to his season. His defence has not made his life easy, but still. A 6.00 goals against average (or something close) through two full games is…. Just obviously bad. He’s back in his crease, going down early, and yet still making the athletic saves that made himself rise to prominence multiple times a game. With a second competent goaltender sharing the crease, performances like this have to be met with a swap for the next game. 2.30 expected goals against at 5v5, with 6 behind him. Just not good enough.

The Goals –