During Saturday’s Hockey Night in Canada broadcast, they showed a clip of Dustin Wolf as he arrived at T-Mobile Arena, briefly stopped by a security guard as he searched his suit pockets for a pass or ID.
The Calgary Flames’ starting netminder might be wishing he was turned away at the door.
Wolf received an early hook in a blowout loss to the Vegas Golden Knights, surrendering five goals in two periods of work and then taking a seat for the remainder of what wound up as a 6-1 shellacking.
It’s a continuation of a dreadful start to the season for the Flames. Since winning their opener, they’ve dropped five in a row.
Mark Stone piled up four points — two goals and two helpers — in Saturday’s drubbing, while Mitch Marner also tallied twice for the home side, including one just 46 seconds after the opening faceoff.
Tomas Hertl and Ivan Barbashev added singles and Jack Eichel picked up four assists, stretching his lead atop the NHL scoring race.
Jonathan Huberdeau, in his return from injury, had the lone marker for the Flames, who will now head home for Monday’s matchup with the Winnipeg Jets.
Here are three takeaways from Calgary’s latest loss …
Wrong kind of history
At 1-5-0, the Flames have just a pair of standings points to show for their first six games.
That is a historically bad record through a half-dozen dates, equalling the worst start in franchise lore. The Flames previously stumbled to a 1-5-0 mark at the outset of the 2015-16 campaign and they were 0-4-2 after six skates in 1997-98.
While some fans will cheer this fall flop, pointing out that it increases their odds of landing projected first-overall pick Gavin McKenna, a proud bunch of players can’t and won’t look at it that way.
We’ll learn plenty about this group as they try to turn things around before it’s far too late. They’ve already put themselves in a very tough spot. Consider this — to finish with 96 points, which would match their total from last season, they’d need a record along the lines of 44-26-6 over their final 76 contests.
According to Flames head coach Ryan Huska, Saturday’s undoing started with a hat-trick of first-period mistakes. All resulted in goals for the Golden Knights.
“We need to be more committed, I feel like, and more detailed for a full 60 minutes than what we’ve shown so far this year,” Huska said.
“This is one of those games where obviously we have to learn from what we did wrong,” Flames captain Mikael Backlund echoed after the lopsided loss to the Golden Knights. “But also we know how bad it was and we know we can be a lot better. We have to dig deep here now and climb ourselves out of this hole that we’ve been digging.
“Losing five in a row, it’s not what we wanted. It’s a brutal spot to be in. But we’ll come together and we’ll gather together as a team. We have a strong team and we’re going to be ready on Monday.”
Flames forward Jonathan Huberdeau (right) scores against Golden Knights goaltender Adin Hill as Matt Coronato and Nazem Kadri look on Saturday.
Welcome back, Huby
Huberdeau, after missing the first five games due to injury, immediately made his presence felt in his season debut.
The 32-year-old cashed a power-play goal on just his second shift of the night. From his knees, he managed to whack a loose puck under Adin Hill’s pads.
Huberdeau’s return is good news — Huska described his line, with Nazem Kadri and Joel Farebee, as “excellent” — but he is not going to singlehandedly turn the fortunes of what is currently the NHL’s most toothless attack.
The Flames are averaging just 1.67 strikes per night, which puts way too much pressure on Wolf.
Did the sophomore puck-stopper have his best stuff Saturday? Probably not. But his buddies need to be better for him in both ends.
Wolf was credited with 14 stops in Vegas, dropping his season save percentage to .854.
Devin Cooley turned aside eight of nine in relief, somehow preventing the Golden Knights from sniping a seventh on a two-on-none rush.
“We’re a way better team than the way we’re playing right now,” Huberdeau told reporters in Vegas. “We’re not playing for each other. I think we’re kind of trying to do things individually. I just feel we need to come back, play as a team. We know we’re not going to score five or six a game, so we need to be better defensively. Right now, it’s just too easy against us. Like, we’re leaving the best player on the other team wide open. We just have to be harder on these guys and play more together.”
Chuckin’ knuckles
The Flames are, by this measure, the NHL’s most scrappy bunch so far this fall.
They now lead the league with four fights.
Ryan Lomberg had a score to settle in Sin City, seeking out Colton Sissons in the early stages. That was retribution for Sissons’ high hit Tuesday on Flames rookie blue-liner Zayne Parekh.
Later in the first, after Adam Klapka stapled Zach Whitecloud into the boards, Jeremy Lauzon demanded a dance with the towering forward.
Lomberg, who had a game-high six hits in Vegas, and Klapka have both had a pair of punch-ups already this fall.
While nobody will confuse the Flames for the Broad Street Bullies or the Charlestown Chiefs, they’re determined to be miserable to play against and that will sometimes require a dropping of mitts.
It will certainly mean something to Parekh, who showed stretches of impressive poise Saturday in one of the NHL’s toughest road rinks, that a veteran teammate was taking notes after Sissons landed that elbow earlier in the week.