Calgary Flames

2021 Calgary Flames milestone tracker

Although it is a shortened season, there are a number of Flames who will be looking to break some significant career milestones this season. Some are looking for individual milestones of games played, goals, or assists, while others are looking to move up the Flames’ all time record chart.

Individual milestones

Games played

Still young and fresh, Mark Giordano will be looking to hit a career milestone of 900 NHL games. He is just seven games away. Although he is the Flames’ oldest player at 37, it is not implausible that he hits 1000 career games before he finally hangs up his skates.

One player closing in on the 1000 game is Milan Lucic, who is just 42 games shy. Assuming he stays healthy and stays in the lineup, he should be able to hit that milestone this season.

Among the older guard of the Flames, Mikael Backlund is just 10 games away from hitting 700 on his career. He is also looking to move up the Flames’ all time list in certain categories, but we’ll touch on that below.

While it feels only yesterday that Johnny Gaudreau first played for the Flames, he is slowly closing in on 500 games played. While he is still 46 games away, he should be able to hit that milestone easily with a full season this year.

Noah Hanifin is the only Flame closing in on the 400 games played mark. He is just 11 away. Matthew Tkachuk is the only Flame closing in on 300 games played. He is just seven games away. Both should clear those hurdles.

Both Josh Leivo and Dominik Simon are closing in on the 200 games played mark. Leivo is 31 away while Simon is 27. Leivo has had bad injury luck the last few seasons, but hopefully this is a healthy year for him.

A couple Flames youngsters are closing in on their first 100 games played. Dillon Dube is 30 games away while recently re-signed Oliver Kylington is just 13 away. They should both hit their first 100 games this season.

Goal, assist, and Point Totals

There are surprisingly few Flames on track for major points milestones this season, partially because of the shortened season and partially because a number have just cleared their milestones. For example, Elias Lindholm hit 200 career assists last season. However, a few are on track for some key milestones.

Gaudreau is hoping to hit 300 career assists this season. Number 13 is just 13 away from that milestone.

His linemate (maybe) Sean Monahan is also looking to hit a points milestone this season. He is just six goals away from 200 career goals. Tkachuk is also looking to clear a goals milestone, just six away from 100 career goals. Both of them hopefully will score many more in their career.

Looking at assists, both Derek Ryan and Chris Tanev are looking to hit the 100 career assist mark this season. Ryan still has 15 assists to go, which may be a bit optimistic in this shortened season. Tanev is just four away, which the defensive defenceman should hopefully be able to hit.

Flames Career Statistics

While Jarome Iginla holds (and likely will always hold) the record in most of these categories, a number of long time Flames will be hoping to move up the standings.

Giordano sits a distant second (to Iginla) in games played as a Flame, Backlund sits eighth. He is just 21 back of Jim Peplinski, and will hope to overtake him this year.

Still a long ways away from Iginla’s goal record, Monahan is currently ninth, but should he put up 21 goals, he will jump up to sixth, ahead of Lanny McDonald and Al MacInnis. He can also overtake the former in powerplay goals should he put up five more on the man advantage. If he can be as prolific at 5v5, Monahan can also overtake Hakan Loob in even strength goals should he put up at least eight this season.

While some of these milestones may be a little out of reach with the shortened season, most of them are very much within reach. We will be keeping our eyes on this to see if the Flames skaters can reach these career milestones.

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