Well, if you weren’t convinced the Calgary Flames were off to a bad start before last night’s game against the Vegas Golden Knights, I’d hope you are now. Saturday night’s 6–1 loss marked the Flames’ fifth consecutive loss, starting the season with a 1–5–0 record.
It’s evident something isn’t working, but this week we wanted to know how much Flames fans are concerned with the team to start the regular season. We asked, you answered.
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How worried are you about the Flames’ slow start?
We presented the poll below to our readers:
They’ll be fine
Just over 10% of respondents to this week’s poll think the Flames will be fine. It certainly isn’t a majority, or a faction of fans that are realistic to be blunt, but there are some fans out there that have hope in Ryan Huska smoothing things out. It’s been a horrible start for the team, offensively, defensively, and in their goaltending situation.
There has been little to no spark, no power play pace, and no “culture” that was spoken of so highly last season. But this faction of fans does have some hope and believes this group can turn it around. It may be overly optimistic at this point, but throwing them to the wolves would be shortsighted as well.
There is still a strong collective of veteran leadership in the locker room, and teams have bounced back from worse. However, the Flames are struggling everywhere, not just in one or two aspects of their game.
Generally concerned
This brings us to the very concerned and mildly concerned fans that make up a combined 20% of this week’s votes. Let’s be real, if you voted mildly concerned, you probably just needed one more catastrophically demoralizing loss like last night’s game in Vegas to put you over the hump. There’s reason for concern; let’s not lie to ourselves here, folks.
The Flames suck. Horrendously.
They’re dead last in league standings, with a league-worst -14 goal differential. In reality, they’re at the bottom of the league in every major team statistic outside of their special teams. Their power play ranks 21st in the league at 15.8% and their penalty kill is 14th with an 85% kill rate.
They’re averaging 1.8 goals per game with roughly 24 shots on goal a game. Nazem Kadri is the lowest leading scorer on an NHL team with four points, and the phenomenal Dustin Wolf is being hung out to dry in his sophomore season with no reliable backup to take on some of the workload. To cap it off, we have the perennially underperforming Jonathan Huberdeau posting a goal highlight during the intermission of a game where the team is trailing 4–1. If that isn’t a red flag, I don’t know what is.
Team Tank
The landslide victor this week, collecting a whopping 70% of votes, is Team Tank. It’s been a deceiving year in Flames country. We were sold the image of a quick retool with realistic playoff aspirations and a revitalized team culture!! Now, I think it’s more likely Ryan Huska gets a perm than the Calgary Flames even sniff a wild card spot.
No one’s buying what the Flames are selling anymore. It’s time Murray Edwards descends from his Swiss mansion and puts a stop to this despicable lie that’s being sold to us, which is that the Flames have the ability to be competitive this season. There are huge changes that need to be made. Last season, hot goaltending and timely, energy-driven comebacks were what earned this team a chance at the playoffs. That is not going to happen this year, and if the Flames ownership group has any ounce of business acumen, they will sell off every player over the age of 26 and load up as much capital for the next two drafts as possible.
The team is building a solid foundation of prospects, and one to two more years of similar pedigree classes will create an influx of talent that can sustain a competitive roster. However, a Gavin McKenna expedites that process substantially. What are you gaining from struggling to win games all season as the alternative? Rasmus Andersson having another brutal season and devaluing himself further?
I think the writing is on the wall, Flames fans. Let’s hope the ownership group does as well. Get ready to be the Nashville Predators of the 2025–26 season.
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