Technically speaking, the Calgary Flames intended on hitting the ice Wednesday at 11:45 a.m.

The first player finally appeared 35 minutes late for a workmanlike practice with plenty of coaching instruction and little in the way of idle chatter.

So why the delay? What happened in the secure confines of the Flames dressing room at the Saddledome?

“I think that stuff should stay behind closed doors,” said left-wing Michael Cammalleri. “The coach talked, and we talked. From my short time here, it seems like he’s that kind of coach. He likes to wear his emotions on his sleeve and tell you how he feels.”

The exasperated look on head coach Brent Sutter’s face behind the bench at the end of the past two games tells you exactly how he feels about the sloppy mistakes at inopportune times that keep tripping up his hockey club.

“We just talked about a lot of things in here,” veteran defenceman Cory Sarich said of the meeting. “Hopefully, a lot of it was absorbed. We just talked a little bit about our expectations here going forward.

“It was a serious conversation.”

A serious conversation invoked by the serious set of circumstances the Flames face if they have a hope of qualifying for the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Riding a two-game losing streak at home, the Flames are tied with Phoenix for 11th place in the Western Conference — three points back of the eighth-place Minnesota Wild.

With 31 games remaining, this is hardly the time for a prolonged slump.

“If you keep going for too long without getting points, then the math doesn’t work for you,” Sarich said. “It’s got to be now. We’ve said that several times this year. We show spurts, but it’s again about our consistency and expectations. They need to be higher. And better.”

Sutter called the meeting in the wake of a 1-0 loss before the all-star break to San Jose and a 3-1 defeat Tuesday at the hands of the Detroit Red Wings.

Somehow, his charges must reverse the trend or else face yet another early summer on the golf course.

“You look at the two teams we’ve played, and we’ve been right there with them,” Sutter said. “And yet, they found a way to win it, and we never.

“That’s what they do on a nightly basis. Whether it’s Game 1 of the season or Game 82, they stick with their game. It doesn’t matter which individual it is on their team. Everyone does it, and stays with it and plays that way. And that’s what separate teams in the standings. We don’t want to be separated on the down side of that.”

The Flames are definitely on the down side of the standings when it comes to offensive production, With an average of 2.33 goals per game, they rank a putrid 27th in offence.

In the past two games combined, they have mustered a grand total of just one strike.

“It’s not about us scoring more goals,” Cammalleri said. “It’s about us beating the other team.

“We’re not pressing anything that way. We’re just trying to work our game. . . . When comes to producing offensively, you can’t just pick one thing. It has to do with your whole play.”

To Cammalleri, the solution to the scoring drought comes down to a simple equation. “The better you play in your own end, the better you are through the neutral zone, the more time you’ll have in the other end, and the probability of the puck going in their net is a lot more,” he said. “It’s about the overall game.”

And perhaps not obsessing about the collective troubles turning on the red light.

“I’ve played with some of the best offensive players in the world in Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg and those guys,” said left-wing Alex Tanguay. “You go through times like that. But the outcome of scoring is only dictated by whether you win or not.

“If we had won the last five games 1-0 or 2-1, nobody would be talking about the low scoring. As long as we win games, I don’t think we’ll hear about it.”

But they’re not scoring. And they’re not winning.

So they’re hearing about it.

“You can win a lot of games playing good defence,” Sarich said, admitting his bias on the matter as a defensive defenceman. “You can win a lot of games with just a couple goals. One is tough sometimes, but anywhere from one to three should give you a chance to win games — if you do the other things right.”

And so the Flames let four valuable points get away in the losses to San Jose and Detroit. Next up is a visit Friday from the mighty Chicago Blackhawks followed by a three-game road swing through Anaheim, San Jose and Phoenix.

“The last few nights, we’ve been right where we need to be, and then we don’t get the job done,” Sarich said.

“That’s frustrating. That’s on us. We’ve just have to go out the next game and get the job done.

“Those points were ones we needed. But we can’t do anything about it now. We just have to prepare and look ahead.”