The 2022–23 NHL season is just around the corner: Calgary Flames regular season hockey starts this week. The first step in getting to that point? Finalizing an opening night roster by the 3:00PM deadline on Thanksgiving Monday.
Calgary’s 2022–23 opening night lineup
The Flames made the final preparations Monday afternoon by announcing their 22-man (more on that later) roster comprised of two goaltenders, seven defencemen, and thirteen forwards:
The roster breaks down as follows:
Flames forwards
- #10 – Jonathan Huberdeau
- #11 – Mikael Backlund
- #17 – Milan Lucic
- #20 – Blake Coleman
- #21 – Kevin Rooney
- #22 – Trevor Lewis
- #24 – Brett Ritchie
- #28 – Elias Lindholm
- #29 – Dillon Dube
- #63 – Adam Ruzicka
- #73 – Tyler Toffoli
- #88 – Andrew Mangiapane
- #91 – Nazem Kadri
Flames defencemen
- #3 – Connor Mackey
- #4 – Rasmus Andersson
- #8 – Chris Tanev
- #16 – Nikita Zadorov
- #52 – MacKenzie Weegar
- #53 – Nicolas Meloche
- #55 – Noah Hanifin
Flames goalies
- #25 – Jacob Markstrom
- #80 – Daniel Vladar
The Flames’ opening night cap hit and situation
This leaves the Flames with a projected salary cap hit of $81,325,000, with about $1.175M in cap space to start off the season. One key to note is that the Flames have Oliver Kylington listed under injured/non-roster and currently counts towards the cap. There is no news on what his status will be moving forward, but as of this moment this is where he is allocated.
Also important that as of this writing, Michael Stone is not listed on the Flames roster, does he have a contract, nor has he been released from his PTO. Although there is bound to be some capacity in which Stone is with the Flames this season, his status remains unclear.
Turning of the tide
Compared to last year’s roster, the Flames have three new defencemen listed in Mackey, Weegar, and Meloche compared to last year when recently claimed Juuso Valimaki, Stone, and Erik Gudbranson were listed in their place.
On the forward grouping, we know the massive changes that occurred this offseason, leading to five new names including Huberdeau, Rooney, Toffoli, and Kadri.
The Flames’ season kicks off on Thursday against the defending Stanley Cup Champions: the Colorado Avalanche. Flames hockey is back.
Photo by Brett Holmes/Icon Sportswire
