The last 24 hours may have been filled with pain for Calgary Flames fans, but there is a small ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds for tomorrow’s final game of the season.
Per Eric Francis, newly-signed Flames prospect Matt Coronato will be making his NHL debut.
Finally.
Calling on Coronato
After being drafted in 2021 with the 13th overall pick, Coronato has been touted as one of the Flames’ best prospects. Playing the last two seasons with the Harvard University men’s hockey team, Coronato has been one of their best offensive forwards scoring 36 points in 34 games in both seasons. While he did see a lot of time on the team’s power play, he also was a key cog on their top penalty kill, which is enormous for his development.
Now we can only hope that translates to the NHL.
After being eliminated from the NCAA hockey tournament a few weeks ago, Coronato has been watching the Flames from the press box with most wondering when he would hit the ice. After the Flames were eliminated from playoff contention last night, there would have been city-wide outrage if he didn’t make it into the lineup tomorrow night.
Of course where and how much he will play is the next biggest question facing this team. Darryl Sutter is still making the lineup decisions, and can influence where and when he plays.
Let’s hope that he is finally given a decent shot at making some noise, perhaps along side Elias Lindholm and Jonathan Huberdeau? Or throw together an all kids line with Jakob Pelletier and Adam Ruzicka.
The possibilities are endless.
All that being said, #CoronatoSZN has officially begun.
Photo by Annabel Banks from gocrimson.com.
