Rickard Rakell misfired on a shot from close range while the Ducks were on a power play in the opening minutes of their 6-2 loss to the Calgary Flames on Wednesday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome. Then he missed the net on another try moments later from even closer range.

Ryan Getzlaf had a point-blank scoring chance while on another first-period power play. Adam Henrique couldn’t convert while cutting toward the Flames’ net a little while later. Sonny Milano had a spin-and-shoot attempt moments later but struck the outside of the goal post.

The Ducks took their best shots.

And missed.

The Flames took their best shots.

And scored.

“It seemed like we had some good pressure and some good opportunities, but all for nothing,” Ducks defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk said. “It really doesn’t matter if you don’t have anything to show for it. We couldn’t find a way to put it in the back of the net. Our passes just needed to be a touch crisper.”

The Ducks lost their second consecutive game after a 10-day All-Star break.

The Flames won their eighth in a row dating to before the break.

The Ducks have dropped from a playoff position during their light schedule.

The Flames have risen to the top of the Pacific Division during their streak.

“They’re going to be one of the teams to beat in the West without a doubt,” Shattenkirk said of the Flames.

There was no telling what an early goal or two might have done for the Ducks in the first game of their three-game trip to western Canada. They failed to click after Calgary’s Elias Lindholm was given a double minor for high-sticking the Ducks’ Jamie Drysdale only 34 seconds into the game.

Calgary, the NHL’s third-best penalty-killing team going into the game, gave up two glorious chances to Rakell while Lindholm was seated in the penalty box. Rakell couldn’t convert and the Ducks paid the price when Dillon Dube deflected a perimeter shot past John Gibson at 5:34.

Getzlaf couldn’t knock home a cross-ice pass while stationed near the right goal post while the Ducks were on another power play, after Adam Ruzicka was whistled for elbowing Shattenkirk in the nose at the 6-minute mark, drawing blood. The Ducks couldn’t score on that one, either.

By the end of the game, the Ducks were 0 for 5 on the power play.

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The second period started well enough for the Ducks, but it ended with them trailing 4-1 to start the third. Milano scored 1:35 into the second to cut the Ducks’ deficit to 2-1. The Flames extended their lead to 4-1 on goals less than a minute apart from Elias Lindholm and Matthew Tkachuk.

“We were coming along in the second and we gave them two goals,” Ducks coach Dallas Eakins said. “You can’t give up two goals like that.”

Gibson departed in favor of backup Anthony Stolarz at 9:05 of the second, after giving up four goals on 20 shots. Gibson wasn’t injured, according to Eakins, but took a seat on the bench in order to be available to play in Thursday’s game against the Edmonton Oilers, the next stop on the trip.

Isac Lundestrom’s short-handed goal 4:26 into the third period brought the Ducks within 4-2. Lundestrom tied Corey Perry’s franchise record for short-handed goals in a season with his fourth. Perry set the mark in 2010-11, when he scored 50 goals. Lundestrom has 12 this season.

Calgary’s Johnny Gaudreau and Andrew Mangiapane scored late goals to make it 6-2.