"They started the evening in a fog, the obligatory smoke pumping out copiously during pre-game introductions, and ended it that way, too. Long after the air had cleared.

The overtime goal came out of nowhere, nothing, Mike Cammalleri's pass attempt on the sideboards clipping Mattias Ohlund's stick, popping up into the air and setting the Vancouver Canucks off 3-on-1, Robyn Regehr the lone Flame back.

Puck carrier Alex Burrows tried to play Regehr off in the middle, but in switching to his backhand lost control of the puck. Luckily for the visitors, Pavol Demitra was right there to slot a shot in short side at 3:53.

A terrible break? Certainly.

A lucky goal? Absolutely.

But really nothing more than Calgary Flames deserved. Or didn't deserve, more to the point.

"Yeah, it's disappointing,'' said Calgary captain Jarome Iginla after the 5-4 overtime loss. "There were many good things out there. We, obviously, had some breakdowns. Again. But we'd been able to get things going off the start -- we'd all showed up. But it doesn't feel good. We keep going.

"We're giving up a lot of point-blanks things -- bang, bang -- which are real tough on goalies. We've got to tighten it up." Right now, they're looser than Paris Hilton's morals.

The Flames blew a 3-1, 20-minute lead. They failed to cling tight to a one-goal lead through the final period, the way good teams do. They weren't able to use the emotional fuel of a one-punch Jarome Iginla flattening of defenceman Willie Mitchell that almost ripped the roof off the Saddledome.

They allowed the Sedin twins to toy maliciously with them. Again. Two goals for Daniel and two helpers for Henrik.

The Canucks were doubtless expecting a big early push after that 6-0 pistol-whipping they laid on the Flames 48 hours earlier at GM Place. And despite another weak, spirit-deflating goal surrendered by Miikka Kiprusoff, the Flames gave them that. But they couldn't force the issue, seemed content with the two-goal lead, and allowed their Northwest Division rivals to chip away, chip away, reclaim some inner belief, to the point that the Canucks were dictating the game.

The pasting out west hurt. But this loss might've stung more. It was there for the taking, and they didn't grab hard enough.

It's absurdly early, granted. But there are disturbing trends developing here that need addressing before they become second nature.

Miikka Kiprusoff's goaltending isn't good enough yet. Yes, he's historically a notoriously slow starter but after his toughest year as a Flame, everyone expected him to be razor-sharp bolting out of the gate this September. In two starts, that hasn't happened.

Serving to compound Kiprusoff's woes, the defensive zone coverage isn't close to being good enough.

The Canucks really should've ended the suspense a minute and change into OT, seconds after an atrocious boarding call on Todd Bertuzzi with 1:26 left in regulation had expired (Bertuzzi almost completely missing his intended target, centre Ryan Johnson, the officials) Henrik Sedin set the table and putting out the good china for incoming defenceman Ohlund, but he hammered a shot wide of the near post."