But he’s also witnessed their jarringly sloppy opening bid to this campaign. Yet the Calgary Flames skipper has no doubts regarding his group.

“Let’s feel good about ourselves,” Hartley was saying before Friday night’s game. “This is a great group of guys. We’ve have lots of faith in them. Bring the total game. When things go bad like this … there’s one, two, three parts of your game that disappear and everything crumbles.

“Right now, it’s not a physical challenge we’re facing, it’s a mental challenge.”

And an historical one.

Worst start at home for the franchise.

Worst start, period, for the franchise.

But this appearance? A remarkable upgrade.

The Flames outplayed the Detroit Red Wings and outshot them 40-29 — and, yes, even outscored them.

On Mark Giordano’s soft-handed overtime tally, the Flames prevailed 3-2 in National Hockey League action at the Saddledome.

Finally, they resemble the 2014-15 bunch.

“That was us — that’s how we want to play, day in and day out,” said Josh Jooris, who’d crushed Mike Green with a tide-swinging hit in the first period. “Now we got a taste of it. We always knew we were capable of it. It was just a matter of putting it to the test. We’ve got to keep playing like that.

“You could just feel it. We were coming in waves and we didn’t let our foot off the gas. That’s the way we want to play — we want to push the pace, taking control instead of sitting back and waiting for it. So that’s what we did and you could feel it.

“We were back to our M.O. It was fun to be a part of.”

Now, with a three-game hump into the Eastern Conference dead ahead, the Flames are 2-5-0, including 1-4-0 in Calgary.

“It’s huge — I think we needed that first win to get on a role here,” said Jooris. “We’re heading on the road, it’s going to be nice to get away a bit, get together. Just kind of unite on the road. We want to get some wins.”

For the Wings, Gustav Nyquist and Brendan Smith counted.

Giordano had also scored earlier for the Flames, who wrote one of their signature comebacks.

With the locals pressing like the dickens, the pulled-goalie equalizer arrived at 18:48 of the third period, Joe Colborne doing the net-front honours.

“We were just relentless,” said Jooris. “You could just tell … what did we have, 35, 40 shots on net? That’s a big difference, a big jump from 15 or 20. We got pucks to the net. We paid the price in front of the net.

“Just some simple hockey and we got the job done.”

Helping matters was the netminding.

Jonas Hiller was rock solid.

In the third period, he made sensational saves on Dylan Larkin and Tomas Tatar.

But, post-game, the goalie praised his mates.

“That’s what we had in mind when we talked about playing better,” said Hiller. “We were so-so in the first period, but we got our confidence in the second, and probably played our best period this season in the third. We could’ve easily tied the game earlier.

“It’s definitely two great points, a game we can really build on going on this road trip. We were struggling at home, so to finally be able to play a good game at home definitely helps.

“On the road, it won’t be easier. There’s a lot of hockey played in just a few days.”

Desperation should not have been a scarce commodity for either the hosts (losers of four straight) or the travellers (losers of three straight).

The Wings connected first, Henrik Zetterberg setting up Nyquist for a power-play conversion.

Soon after, Johnny Gaudreau rolled a pass to the point and Giordano snapped home a rising wrister at 11:02.

But for not even two minutes could the Flames bask in the deadlocked contest.

Because Giordano went off for delay of game — he’d knocked it over the glass — and the deadly power players from Detroit went to work.

With a crowd in front, including Riley Sheahan, Smith’s low point shot made it 2-1.

scruickshank@calgaryherald.com

Twitter/CruickshankCH