Music: {allcanada} Coach rips into sleepy Flames after debacle

No need to hire a lip-reader to decipher the words spilling out of Brent Sutter's mouth at the freshly minted Scotiabank Saddledome.

Surrounded by his downtrodden charges, the Calgary Flames head coach puts his middle finger to his temple.

"Use your (bleeping) heads," the coach snarls.

Moments later, Sutter lets loose with another mantra for a grim-faced group in the wake of a lopsided 4-0 loss to the baby-faced Edmonton Oilers.

"Get out of your comfort zone," Sutter bellows.

Clearly, Sutter is seething over the lack of mental acumen demonstrated by his team when it counts. Yes, the Flames ran through the pre-season with a perfect 7-0 record. But that means absolutely nothing.

The Flames, if you recall, are allegedly the experienced ones in the Battle of Alberta. What they may lack in speed and youthful exuberance, they're supposed to make up for in veteran poise and attention to deal.

Not so on Thursday with the Flames giving an entire city legitimate reason to fret over a season that is still so young. Without the magical work of Miikka Kiprusoff (notes), the score could have been 8-0, or worse.

So what gives?

"We've just got to refocus and retool," Sutter said in a soothing voice some 30 minutes after practice. "It's one game, and you move on."

Don't be fooled by the cool veneer. Sutter is frustrated, but he realizes there's no percentage in publicly naming names after the first of 82 games.

Abandoning the game plan simply comes with predictable results. Trying to play pond hockey against Taylor Hall (notes), Ales Hemsky (notes) and Jordan Eberle (notes) is just as dumb as playing loosey-goosey against the likes of Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey and Glenn Anderson in the early 1980s.

Bob Johnson hated it back then. Brent Sutter despises it now.

"There were times you saw two defencemen and you couldn't see any forwards," Sutter said of the embarrassment in Edmonton. "They were two zones ahead of where our defence was.

"There were times you saw a defenceman leading the rush. All of a sudden, the puck is turned over, and bang there's a 2-on-1.

"That isn't what we're about."

So what exactly is this squad all about? Are the Flames, as the critics suggest, simply too old and beyond their best-before date?

Age is not the problem, in the eyes of the coach. The answer, according to Sutter, rests between the ears.

"We want to be a hardworking team," Sutter said. "We don't want to be a team that is just comfortable in how we play."

So no floating near the offensive blueline. No standing still and waiting for the puck. No blind passes through the neutral zone.

"It's not OK to play the way we did last night," Sutter said. "I'm not happy about it. They shouldn't be happy about it.

"They need to respond in the right way."

After a night with little sleep, Sutter forced his men to respond with intense practice full of drills that simulate game combat.

No bag skate, but Sutter let loose with a string of expletives as he tried to drill the mental side of the game into a team that simply looked bereft of answers the night before.

"I think our effort was there," said right-wing Rene Bourque (notes). "But upstairs, we weren't really focused. We'll rebound. I think we'll be fine for Sunday."

Don't look now, but the surging Los Angeles Kings swoop into town Sunday night for the season opener at the Saddledome.

"Mentally, we weren't there," Bourque said. "Our effort was there, but our smarts weren't. That's what hurt us. We just didn't come to play. Mentally, we were in la-la land it felt like."

Hard to argue with that assessment.

"We couldn't get anything going," Bourque said. "You know, we take five penalties in the first period. That's going to hurt us."

So was it just an case of an off night? Or a sign of things to come?

"They were good," said captain Jarome Iginla (notes). "We knew they would be. Unfortunately, in the first period, we gave them too much energy. Too much life. Too much time with the puck."

That sums it up nicely.

So does this: "How we managed playing with and without the puck wasn't intelligent," Sutter said. "We played a real non-intelligent hockey game with not a lot of drive."

Strong words from the coach. Yes, the Flames are decimated up front with injuries with Matt Stajan (notes) (shoulder), Daymond Langkow (notes) (neck), David Moss (notes) (shoulder) and Ales Kotalik (notes) (knee) all out of the lineup. But there's no excuse for failing to show up for the season opener.

Right?

"We need to have everyone playing well," Sutter said. "We can't have certain guys going out there and doing what they need to do and others not playing up to their potential."

Especially when the guys not playing to their potential are the ones taking home the biggest paycheques.