The Calgary Flames’ difficult start to the 2026-27 season continued on Sunday night. Calgary dropped its third consecutive game to open the season [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/calgary-flames/latest-news/flames-rough-opening-night-provides-an-early-reality-check], falling 6-1 to the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena. After being beaten by Seattle in their home opener, the Flames were hoping for a much different response on the road. Instead, a familiar story unfolded, with defensive breakdowns putting Calgary in an early hole that proved impossible to overcome. Credit: Kevin Ng-Imagn Images [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/d1c3ef24-3d70-47b4-92c0-7d748598aae1.jpeg] Credit: Kevin Ng-Imagn Images Seattle opened the scoring just 2:22 into the game. Berkly Catton forced a turnover in the slot after the Flames failed to handle the puck cleanly in their own zone. Catton walked in and snapped a shot over Dustin Wolf’s glove to give the Kraken an early 1-0 lead. Just over two minutes later, Seattle doubled its advantage. Brandon Montour cleared the puck out of his own zone and Mackie Samoskevich raced past both Flames defencemen to collect it. He then slipped a shot through Wolf to make it 2-0. Credit: Kevin Ng-Imagn Images [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/0f83a87f-c123-44cb-a2fb-39bd260ed283.jpeg] Credit: Kevin Ng-Imagn Images The Kraken continued to capitalize on Calgary’s mistakes. [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/calgary-flames/latest-news/flames-offensive-woes-continue-as-canucks-rally-in-third] At 8:34, Jared McCann took advantage of another breakdown, chipping the puck past Simon Nemec before driving in alone on Wolf. McCann finished the play by lifting a shot over the Flames goaltender to give Seattle a 3-0 lead. The goals continued in the second period. At 11:58, Catton sped down the right side before stopping up and finding Shane Wright trailing the play. Wright took the pass on his backhand, spun and fired through the legs of Zach Whitecloud, with the puck eventually finding its way past Wolf. Seattle made it 5-0 with just 25.1 seconds remaining in the period. Samoskevich took a cross-ice pass from Matty Beniers and lifted the puck over Wolf for his second goal of the night and the first two-goal game of his NHL career. Credit: Kevin Ng-Imagn Images [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/d3bcd9f4-8b3e-4770-9654-fbc71b5faf95.jpeg] Credit: Kevin Ng-Imagn Images The Flames showed some life in the third period generating several better opportunities and spent more time attacking the Seattle net. However, Joey Daccord was up to the task and turned aside the chances that came his way. The Flames finally broke through on the power play at 14:25. Morgan Frost took a hard pass from Matvei Gridin and redirected the puck past Daccord to put Calgary on the board. Any momentum from the goal, however, disappeared almost immediately. [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/calgary-flames/latest-news/flames-offensive-woes-continue-as-canucks-rally-in-third] Just 39 seconds later, Seattle responded with a tic-tac-toe passing play that ended with Jordan Eberle one-timing the puck past Wolf to restore the five-goal advantage. The final horn sounded with the Kraken on top 6-1. THREE TAKEAWAYS 1. Too many defensive breakdowns For a team that is going to rely heavily on defensive structure to be successful, there were simply too many breakdowns. The Flames allowed odd-man rushes, failed to win enough loose pucks and weren’t consistently sharp with the details in their own zone. Seattle was able to turn those mistakes into quality scoring chances throughout the game. 2. Calgary was getting shots, but Seattle was getting in the way The Flames generated stretches of offensive pressure and were able to put pucks toward the Seattle net, but the Kraken did an excellent job of getting bodies into shooting lanes. Seattle blocked 20 shots in the Flames’ 6-1 season-opening loss and followed that up with another 22 blocked shots on Sunday. Calgary needs to find ways to get more pucks through traffic and turn its offensive-zone possession into higher-quality opportunities. 3. Seattle has the Flames’ number so far It is becoming a trend Calgary won’t want to continue. The Kraken won both preseason meetings between the two clubs and have now taken both regular-season games by convincing margins. Seattle has outscored Calgary 12-2 in the first two regular-season meetings. There is still a long way to go in the season, and these teams will see each other again, but the early results are difficult to ignore. For the Flames, the focus now has to be on cleaning up the defensive details and finding a way to put together a more complete 60-minute effort. Three games into the season, Calgary is still searching for its first win.
