The Flames head to Vancouver, where they’ve got a potentially winnable game on Saturday night

All the Calgary Flames could do was get back to work.

On Friday morning, there was no hiding from the fact that they played poorly in their season opener against the Seattle Kraken on Thursday night at the Saddledome. Really, when you lose 6-1 in front of your home fans there’s no use searching for silver linings.

But the Flames also weren’t going to wallow in their own sadness. So they broke down what went wrong in the film room and got to work fixing it.

“I mean, when you watch it in video it’s pretty evident what happened: Just a lack of attention to detail,” said Flames centre Morgan Frost. “The coaching staff gives us every reason to be prepared and ready to go and we just weren’t for whatever reason. That’s on us.

“I’ll speak for my line personally, we have to be so much better. That was not even close to how we want to play and I know we can play. You’ve got to try your best to forget about it, it obviously sucks and we apologize to the fans, but we’ll focus on the game tomorrow and I’m sure we’ll put forward a much better effort.”

Those sentiments were shared by each of the players who spoke with the media on Friday before the Flames hopped on a plane to Vancouver, where they’ve got a potentially winnable game against the Canucks on Saturday night.

The team was happy with the way they played in the opening 10 minutes, but were disappointed about how they responded to Jordan Eberle’s opener. They were down 3-0 at first intermission, gave up too many penalties in the second period and were nowhere near where they needed to be in the third period.

Play like that, and they won’t win many games this year.

The Flames know that, but they also believe they’re capable of much better.

“For sure, every single guy has got stuff to work on,” said Flames blueliner Kevin Bahl. “I’ve got stuff to work on, everyone on the team has stuff to work on. Being able to look in the mirror and say ‘i’ve got to focus on this’ even if it hurts the ego a bit, we’ve got 83 games left here. You’ve got to be able to turn it around quick.

“You can’t think about it as individuals. There’s not an individual on this team who is going to carry us through the season and put up a bunch of points or be so good that he carries us through games. Collectively, as a team we’ve got to carry that torch together and I think we can find success if we do that properly.”

While we don’t know for sure how the Flames will line up on Saturday against the Canucks, there were some tweaks at Friday’s practice. Bahl has skated with Simon Nemec all training camp, but was paired with Zach Whitecloud. That should give the Flames a reliable veteran pairing.

Nemec, meanwhile, was with Joel Hanley, who could be coming into the lineup in the place of Yan Kuznetsov.

Those aren’t major changes, so any improvements from the Flames will have to come from the players themselves performing to a higher standard.

“I think everyone knows they have way better, every guy can give more,” said Flames winger Joel Farabee. “I don’t think it’s an effort thing with us, I think it’s maybe working smarter or working in certain areas. We have a group that cares and a good leadership group, we’re not going to act like the season’s over right now. We’re going to get to Van tonight and get to work.”