Very unhappy Brian Burke calls out his top guys.

The Calgary Flames have struggled out of the gate and that's made Brian Burke very unhappy.

Despite the fact that he began by saying he didn't like calling out players, the Calgary Flames president of hockey operations did exactly that following another tough loss on Sunday night, Burke spoke to Sportsnet's 960 The Fan and expressed his displeasure.

"Our top players aren't getting it done," Burke said via The Score. "I'm not one for calling players out or naming names, but our top guys are not playing up to their level - it's that simple."

It's a clear message to the two guys who got big new deals this summer, forward Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau whom the team expected to be dynamic star forwards for them well into the future.

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The two men have been a combined -21 on the season, a very poor statistic for two guys you expect to lead your team offensively, but Calgary is facing a familiar problem between the pipes, shaky goaltending.

Through nine games this season goaltender Brian Elliott has record a save percentage of 0.887 and a goals against average of 3.33, not the kind of numbers Calgary envisioned when they acquired him from the St. Louis Blues via trade. In fact it sounds like the Flames may have to consider yet another such trade if Elliott continues to trend in this direction.

None of this is likely to make Brian Burke very happy.