Stranger Things Season 2: What The Ending Really Means

9. But What About The Other Gates?

In the first season, it was established that the Demogorgon could open portals seemingly at will (though it required a considerable amount of energy to do so) - they were presented as temporal (and temporary) "wounds" that would heal at different rates (with seemingly no pattern, but presumably based on the amount of energy used to open them).

So how come the Demogorgon was able to open those rifts itself in the first place if Eleven was basically the only one able to open and close the "main gate", and why aren't any of the Mind Flayer's other minions (essentially just Demogorgon variants) able to do the same thing? And more importantly, why isn't the Mind Flayer himself able to open those temporary rifts?

For there to be so much importance heaped on the main gate being the only means of travel into the real world in the second season, there's a slightly confusing gap in logic around the others from the first season. Presumably, it was a power limited solely to that monster...