Playoff and contention teams play to win. Every shift. Rebuilding teams play to get their young guys experience. To see who can handle the big minutes or the final plays of the game. The Calgary Flames are demonstrating what a rebuilding franchise looks like: all around bad hockey.

Top to bottom the Flames are in disarray. Goaltending, below average. Defensively, major holes. Offensively, completely absent. The experiments on the powerplay giving the vets like Farabee, Frost, Kadri games to figure out (they haven’t and probably wont). Centres outplayed. Every face-off lost.

This is what a rebuilding team looks like. Simply bad all around.

Granted, 5v5 the Flames have an ethic that generates enough to stay in games. But it’s that extra X factor, special teams, and the timely save, that this team simply doesn’t have.

It’s early, of course, but it’s pretty clear that this season is going to be a LONG one.