The Calgary Flames opened their pre-season schedule on Sunday evening, hosting the Seattle Kraken in the last first pre-season game at the palatial Scotiabank Saddledome.

It a fairly back and forth game, the Flames dropped a close one, losing 4-2 to the Kraken.

Seattle opened the scoring early in the first period. A neutral zone turnover led to an odd-man rush – initially a two-on-one that became a three-on-two – and Ty Nelson, entering as the third trailing player, beat Devin Cooley inside the post to go up 1-0.

Brennan Othmann got chucked from the game a few minutes into the first period, just after Seattle’s goal. He threw a hit on Ville Ottovainen where his elbow whacked the Seattle defender. That led to a fight with John Hayden, and an ejection for Othmann.

Seattle scored on the resulting power play, with Jagger Firkus receiving a bouncing puck in the Flames zone – they did their best to disrupt Seattle’s passing, but the puck took a fortunate bounce. Left alone, Firkus made a nice shot to give Seattle a 2-0 lead.

Late in the third period, the Flames got on the board. An Aydar Suniev forecheck led to a turnover, with Sam Honzek intercepting the puck. He made a pass to Suniev and the forward sniped the puck past Philipp Grubauer to cut the Kraken lead to 2-1.

The Flames kept pushing in the third and tied the game midway through the frame. Suniev got the puck in-close and fired it past Nikke Kokko to tie things up at 2-2.

Right after that, though, Joel Hanley took a minor penalty and Logan Morrison made a nice little deflection in front on the power play, giving Seattle a 3-2 lead.

Seattle added an empty-netter and won 4-2.

The game was fairly clunky and disjointed, but the Flames had a few players that showed really well.

Honzek was easily their best player. But we also saw a lot of good things from the likes of Jonathan Castagna, Zayne Parekh and Yan Kuznetsov.

Conversely, Alex Nylander didn’t stand out, and Hunter Brzustewicz seemed to have challenges with quick decision-making and fought the puck a bit in his own end.

Calgary’s lines:

Devin Cooley started and went the distance. Arsenii Sergeev was dressed as backup.

Seattle’s lines:

Nyman-Molgaard-Firkus
Rehkopf-Morrison-Winterton
Sale-Stephens-Avon
Douglas-Hayden-Villeneuve

Jugnauth-Ottavainen
Olofsson-Nelson
Price-Hammell

Philipp Grubauer started in net, backed up by Nikke Kokko.

The Flames are back in pre-season action on Tuesday night when they host the Vancouver Canucks in the final pre-season game ever in the Saddledome.

The future of hockey coverage is bigger than one team, one market, or one platform. By bringing our local hockey brands together under Daily Faceoff, we’re creating a more complete hockey experience — one that gives fans the best of local passion and league-wide expertise, all in one place. The community remains at the centre. The experience is simply expanding as part of the next evolution of how we cover the game.