The Flames were blanked by the surging Golden Knights 5-0 in Vegas Monday night in the first of a quick two-game road trip.
The homeside remained undefeated in Sin City this season (7-0), and are 7-2-1 on the season, while the Flames fell to 5-3-1 this campaign.
Dan Vladar got the start, playing excellently with 31 saves in the defeat as the Flames were outshot 36-16 on the night.
Calgary will finish off this road trip with their first trip to Utah on Thursday where captain Mikael Backlund will play his 1,000th NHL game, all in a Calgary uniform.
The Flames trailed 1-0 after 20 minutes when Alex Pietrangelo scored for Vegas at 6:39 of the opening frame, sneaking in to the top of the left faceoff dot, taking a pass, and then wiring a wrister farside for his first of the season.
Connor Zary sure did his best to try and get the visitors on the board, though.
Early in the stanza, he made a dandy play to chip the puck high into the zone, then beat his defender to it and make a no-look, backhand feed to linemate Blake Coleman but he couldn’t beat Calgary product Adin Hill.
Then later in the first, Zary led a rush deep into the Vegas zone, spinning to feed Coleman who was again denied, this time by Hill’s arm.
The middle frame was controlled by Vegas, with the Flames on their backskates for much of the period as they were outshot 16-3.
A turnover led to the Golden Knights' second goal, when Jack Eichel intercepted a long pass in the neutral zone and then made a drop feed to Mark Stone, who stepped into a howitzer that beat Vladar high over his right shoulder.
Calgary pushed back in the third but Keegan Kolesar would notch a pair, the first a backdoor tip-in at 2:19 and then off a turnover on a rush at 13:59.
Nicolas Roy would round out the scoring 15 seconds later.
