Bottom in the league in terms of goals scored and goal difference. Calgary Flames is now the last-place team in the NHL.
They can't score, they can't defend.
There's no sugarcoating it when this beleaguered group is just a half-dozen games into the season, losing five in a row and going 1-5.
And the road doesn't get any easier as they face Winnipeg in two of their next three games.
6-1 win in Vegas. Hockey Night in Canada Saturday made an already difficult start even more disappointing, especially as the efforts of several players were questionable.
Coach Ryan Huska, whose players rarely betray his heart, said half his hitters didn't give the expected effort.
Captain Mikael Backlund agreed the group didn't show enough fight after the Flames fell 3-1 in an evenly played first period.
“The boys put up a lot of the fight, but I didn’t think it was up to our standards today,” Backlund said.
The harshest criticism came from HNIC player Kevin Bieksa, who criticized Yegor Sharangovich for failing to complete a check on William Karlsson late in the game.
“I would be completely crazy if I saw that on the bench,” Bieksa said.
“For me it’s a cultural aspect. I would show this clip at practice and say, “Where are my guys who care?” Play with guys who care. If you're going to get that kind of effort, get rid of it. You are a disgrace to the NHL with such efforts. Be a little crazy. I hate losing. This guy doesn't hate losing.
“You have so many good young players… you have a young core and you can’t poison them with this kind of behavior.”
More takeaways from (another) Vegas nightmare:
After missing the first five games of the season due to a preseason injury, Jonathan Huberdeau returned to the lineup and had immediate success, scoring a power play goal three minutes later. A power-play rebound tied the game at 1-1, kicking off a night in which the team's best playmaker did well to inject some energy into the front line along with Nazem Kadri and Joel Farabee.
“You need your best players to be your best players every night, and I think the Kadri, Huberdeau, Farabee line is great for us tonight,” Huska said.
“They had a lot of puck possession and were dangerous. The challenge becomes that it's everyone's business. You can't rely on one group of guys. I don't think we had enough other players that were as engaged as that line.”
Huberdeau said his club doesn't play as a unit and tries too hard to be individual.
“It's too easy against us right now,” said Huberdeau, whose club allowed Mark Stone and Jack Eichel to score four points each.
“We're leaving the other team's best player open. We need to be tougher on those guys.”
Try to blame Dustin Wolf for any of the five goals he was beaten on, but you'd be wrong.
However, after being down five times on 19 shots, Wolf gave way to Devin Cooley in the third period.
It was an important move given the busy schedule ahead this week, with Winnipeg in town on Monday, a visit to Montreal on Wednesday and a return trip to Winnipeg on Friday.
Cooley was excellent in his season debut on Wednesday in Utah and was reliable again Saturday, giving up only once on a Vegas power play that went 3-for-3 on the night. He stopped eight of nine shots.
Having taken note high kick Colton Sissons attacked Zane Parekh when the two teams met four days earlier, and Ryan Lomberg took the opportunity to let the Vegas forward know he wasn't happy with the Flames.
Two minutes later, to no one's surprise, they decided to level the score.
Six minutes later, the Golden Knights took issue with Adam Klapka's hard hit on Zach Whitecloud as Jeremy Lauzon dropped the Flames big forward's gloves.
“I thought (Connor) Zary's line with Lomberg and Klapka gave us a great effort tonight – two good fights from the two guys on that line, but we didn't have much from the other two lines tonight,” Huska said.
“We're at a point now where we're playing well – I thought today's game got away from us for sure – but it's about the consistency that our team has to play with for the full 60 minutes. We need to be more committed and more detailed for the full 60 minutes to get more than we've shown this year.”
There was good news on the farm as rookie Matvey Gridin scored his first AHL goal in his first AHL game just 37 seconds into Saturday's game in Tucson, Arizona. Hunter Brzustewicz also scored his first goal of the season, although the Wranglers lost 5-4 in overtime.
