It was an impressive week for many Calgary Flames prospects, but particularly those in the CHL who are going into the playoffs shortly. The OHL and WHL playoffs begin later this week, and Calgary prospects will be playing in first round matchups all over. This week Rory Kerins had five points, Jack Beck had four points, Lucas Ciona had three assists, Cole Jordan had two assists, and Jeremie Poirier had one big goal. However, none of them were the Standout Performer. Who did even better? Let’s dive into it!
Welcome to the TWC Calgary Flames prospect update. Each week, we’ll take a dive into how the Flames’ prospects have done in their respective leagues. We have defined a prospect as a skater who has played fewer than 65 NHL games, and is younger than 25 years of age. All data is from QuantHockey and EliteProspects. We also use an NHLe calculator built by Christian Roatis (@Croatis) which is used to estimate a player’s equivalent point total in the NHL based on how they are performing in their respective league. The calculator uses the difficulty of the given league combined with the ease at which a player puts up points to determine the NHLe.
Want to see where all the Flames’ prospects are playing this year? Check out our map visualization here.
Standout Performer
Ryan Francis – Saint John Sea Dogs
| GP | G | A | P | PPG | NHLe | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| This week | 4 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 1.8 | N/A |
| Season total | 49 | 24 | 38 | 62 | 1.3 | 29.5 |
Once again, Ryan Francis simply cannot be stopped. The Flames’ forward prospect has been on an absolute tear of late, and put up seven more points this week as he continues to climb the QMJHL scoring charts. Take a look at three of his goals here:
On top of these, all three of his assists were primary, and each was a key pass in creating goals for the Sea Dogs who won their tenth straight game this week.
It is honestly incredible to see Francis’ production since about the middle of February. This month alone, the forward has seven goals and six assists in nine games while playing on the second line. He is now up to 1.3 points-per-game and sits 26th in scoring in the Q.
It feels like only a matter of time before the Flames offer him a qualifying offer. Aside from Rory Kerins, he has been the Flames’ top scorer this season in the CHL and has also been very good at both ends of the ice. While his initial audition in the AHL was not great this year, that was to be expected from a young prospect. He has clearly taken the lessons from that experience and applied it to his game to make him as successful as he has been in the Q.
Francis has always been a bit of a late bloomer, but has been constantly compared to a Paul Byron type player. He will hopefully develop into a strong bottom-six player with high scoring upside, but this will likely take a couple of years in the AHL. He’s a player to keep an eye on going into next season, when he will hopefully be with the Heat.
This and that
QMJHL
- Elsewhere in the Q, Jeremie Poirier continues to score goals like they’re going out of style. The blueliner added a beauty from the blueline on the powerplay against the Charlottetown Islanders. Take a look here:
- Cole Huckins appears to be back full time. He has been skating on the team’s bottom line, both on the wing and at centre, which is a sharp fall from his time in the top-six to start the season. He is not getting many opportunities to play, and has no points this week.
- The other two Q prospects, Cam Whynot and Yan Kuznetsov, are both out injured. Expect them back for the playoffs though.
OHL
- Another huge week for both of the Flames’ prospects in the OHL to end the year.
- Rory Kerins was given a game off in the last of the year, but still put up two goals and three assists this week. Take a look at both goals here.
- Kerins finished the year with 118 points, second in all-time Greyhounds’ scoring behind only Joe Thornton. They will faceoff against the Guelph Storm in the first round of the playoffs.
- Not to be outdone, Jack Beck added three goals and an assist this week. Take a look at them here:
- It is a shame that Beck was unable to play a full season of junior hockey this year, as I think we would have seen him inside the top-20 in scoring in the league. He finishes the year with 1.22 points-per-game, good for 25th in the entire OHL.
- The Ottawa 67’s will play the North Bay Battalion in the playoffs this week.
USHL
- Ilya Nikolayev added a goal and as assist for the Tri-City Storm. He sits 12th in the league in scoring right now, which is huge for a guy who struggled to get minutes in the Russian VHL last year.
- The team won the Anderson Cup, the USHL equivalent to the Presidents’ Trophy for the top team in the regular season, and tied a franchise record with their 45th win of the year.
- Arseni Sergeev picked up a couple more wins and saw his numbers remain virtually the same. He has been splitting duties with his backup more often of late, but expect him to get the starting nod in the playoffs. He sits second in save percentage in the league while having a whopping 40 games under his belt already.
AHL
- A bit of a rough week for the Stockton Heat, who went 0–2–1 in three games. They struggled mightily against the Henderson Silver Knights, the AHL affiliate of the Vegas Golden Knights.
- Justin Kirkland led the way for the Heat with two goals, and has been on a scoring tear of late.
- Jakob Pelletier and Matthew Phillips potted a goal and an assist each as well this week. Take a look at Pelletier’s goal here:
- Pelletier sits 14th in AHL scoring while Phillips sits eighth. It is incredible to see this level of production in a league as tough as this one. Both probably deserve a look at the NHL level.
- Dustin Wolf saw his numbers drop just a touch this week through this mini losing skid. He still sits fifth in the league in save percentage, just behind former Flame Louis Domingue.
Swedish hockey
- William Stromgren got into another SHL playoff game for Rogle, who are down 2–0 in their current round. He has no points in the SHL this season.
- Lucas Feuk in the HockeyEttan has 7 points in 11 playoff games for Vasby IK.
ECHL
- Daniil Chechelev remains with the Stockton Heat, but has not found his way into the crease for the team yet.
WHL
- The Flames’ two WHL prospects have started to heat up. Cole Jordan looked to have gotten a stunning goal, but it bounced off a teammate and ended up counting as an assist for him. He had two in total this week. Take a look at this one here:
- It’s easy to look at Jordan’s production and write him off, but given the number of games he has played and the ailments he has gone through, it is worth waiting on him. He’s back up to about 20 minutes of icetime a night including some powerplay time which is great to see for a young blueliner on a very good team.
- On the other side of the league, Lucas Ciona is back and added three assists for the Seattle Thunderbirds. His production hasn’t been anything to write home about as of yet, but let’s see what he can do as the playoffs get set to begin this week.
NHLe Leaderboard
NHLe is a metric used to estimate a player’s offensive output at the NHL level from their point totals in their respective league. Here are the Flames’ current top 5 (bracketed numbers denote movement from the previous week)
- Adam Ruzicka (AHL) 49.8 (Same)
- Rory Kerins (OHL): 46.1 (Same)
- Matthew Phillips(AHL): 43.4 (Same)
- Jakob Pelletier (AHL) 37.9 (Same)
- Glenn Gawdin (AHL): 33.1 (Same)
Overall regular season totals for Flames prospects
Forwards
| Player | Position | GP | G | A | P | P/GP | PIM | NHLe | Team | League |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jack Beck | LW/RW | 36 | 22 | 22 | 44 | 1.2 | 14 | 32.3 | Ottawa 67’s | OHL |
| Lucas Ciona | LW | 53 | 17 | 18 | 35 | 0.7 | 77 | 16.3 | Seattle Thunderbirds | WHL |
| Matthew Coronato | RW | 34 | 18 | 18 | 36 | 1.1 | 14 | 24.3 | Harvard Crimsons | NCAA |
| Walker Duehr | RW | 54 | 10 | 11 | 21 | 0.4 | 26 | 15.5 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Mathias Emilio Pettersen | C/LW | 54 | 11 | 12 | 23 | 0.4 | 16 | 17.1 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Lucas Feuk | C/W | 10 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0.2 | 0 | N/A | Vasterviks IK | HockeyAllsvenskan |
| C/W | 31 | 12 | 17 | 29 | 0.9 | 14 | N/A | Vasby IK | HockeyEttan | |
| C/W | 5 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0.4 | 0 | N/A | Nybro IF | HockeyEttan | |
| Ryan Francis | RW/C | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| RW/C | 49 | 24 | 38 | 62 | 1.3 | 34 | 29.5 | St John Sea Dogs | QMJHL | |
| Glenn Gawdin | C/RW | 60 | 14 | 34 | 48 | 0.8 | 73 | 31.9 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Cole Huckins | C | 35 | 12 | 13 | 25 | 0.7 | 55 | 16.5 | Acadie Bathurst Titans | QMJHL |
| Rory Kerins | C/LW | 67 | 43 | 75 | 118 | 1.8 | 49 | 46.6 | Soo Greyhounds | OHL |
| Justin Kirkland | C/W | 61 | 22 | 22 | 44 | 0.7 | 73 | 28.7 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Demetrios Koumontzis | LW | 23 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 0.5 | 18 | N/A | Arizona State Sun Devils | NCAA |
| Mitchell Mattson | C | 23 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 0.1 | 16 | 3.5 | Michigan State Spartans | NCAA |
| Ilya Nikolayev | C | 57 | 23 | 47 | 70 | 1.2 | 83 | 27.2 | Tri-City Storm | USHL |
| Josh Nodler | C/RW | 36 | 7 | 8 | 15 | 0.4 | 4 | 11.5 | Michigan State Spartans | NCAA |
| Jakob Pelletier | C/LW | 61 | 27 | 31 | 58 | 1.0 | 22 | 37.9 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Matthew Phillips | C/RW | 60 | 29 | 35 | 64 | 1.1 | 16 | 42.6 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Luke Philp | C/RW | 61 | 21 | 23 | 44 | 0.7 | 14 | 28.7 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Martin Pospisil | C/W | 42 | 7 | 17 | 24 | 0.6 | 84 | 22.7 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Adam Ruzicka | C | 16 | 11 | 9 | 20 | 1.3 | 2 | 49.8 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| William Stromgren | LW | 44 | 13 | 23 | 36 | 0.8 | 18 | N/A | Rogle BK J20 | J20 Nationell |
| LW | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3.0 | 0 | N/A | Rogle BK | Champions HL | |
| LW | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Rogle BK | SHL | |
| Eetu Tuulola | RW | 56 | 14 | 10 | 24 | 0.4 | 48 | 17.1 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Connor Zary | C | 51 | 12 | 12 | 24 | 0.5 | 34 | 18.7 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Dmitri Zavgorodniy | W/C | 11 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0.1 | 4 | 3.6 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| W/C | 10 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 19.8 | HC Sochi | KHL |
Defencemen
| Player | Position | GP | G | A | P | P/GP | PIM | NHLe | Team | League |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jake Boltmann | RHD | 40 | 1 | 12 | 13 | 0.3 | 28 | 9.0 | Notre Dame | NCAA |
| Cole Jordan | LHD | 36 | 2 | 9 | 11 | 0.3 | 40 | 7.7 | Moose Jaw Warriors | WHL |
| Johannes Kinnvall | RHD | 18 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 0.4 | 6 | 17.5 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Yan Kuznetsov | LHD | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| LHD | 20 | 2 | 7 | 9 | 0.5 | 12 | 10.5 | St John Sea Dogs | QMJHL | |
| Connor Mackey | LHD | 53 | 5 | 31 | 36 | 0.7 | 83 | 27.1 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Jeremie Poirier | LHD | 61 | 14 | 38 | 52 | 0.9 | 38 | 19.8 | St. John Sea Dogs | QMJHL |
| Colton Poolman | LHD | 57 | 0 | 12 | 12 | 0.2 | 16 | 8.4 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Ilya Solovyov | LHD | 46 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 0.2 | 22 | 6.0 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Cameron Whynot | LHD | 45 | 4 | 13 | 17 | 0.4 | 48 | 8.8 | Halifax Mooseheads | QMJHL |
Goalies
| Player | Position | GP | GAA | SV% | Record | SO | Team | League |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daniil Chechelev | G | 30 | 3.64 | 0.880 | 12-12-5 | 1 | Kansas City Mavericks | ECHL |
| Tyler Parsons | G | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0-0-0 | 0 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
| Arseni Sergeev | G | 40 | 2.08 | 0.918 | 29-6-1 | 6 | Tri-City Storm | USHL |
| Dustin Wolf | G | 45 | 2.36 | 0.923 | 32-8-5 | 0 | Stockton Heat | AHL |
Want to know more?
Still want to know more about the Flames prospects? Check out our interviews with a number of prospects down below:
Which prospects are you most excited about? Let us know below in the comments or on social media.
