With the trade that sent Nikita Zadorov to the Vancouver Canucks, the Calgary Flames have room to make call-ups in both having a roster spot available and having the salary cap room to work with. Conroy noted that they want to reward the youth, and they’re immediately making good on their promise by re-calling 2020 seventh-round draft pick Ilya Solovyov.
Solovyov’s AHL performance
The Belarusian defenceman has featured in two NHL games thus far in his career, debuting with the team at the end of October on his first re-call. Sandwiching his two-game NHL stint, he’s featured in 16 AHL games with the Calgary Wranglers so far this season, notching two goals and three assists.
In the previous two seasons, Solovyov played 51 games with the Stockton Heat with a 3–5—8 stat line, followed by 68 games with the Wranglers with a 4–14—18 performance. His AHL totals thus work out to be nine goals and 22 assists In addition, he’s posted one goal and two assists over the Heat/Wranglers’ last two playoff runs.
As a defender, he’s not expected to be a major point producer, but he’s shown steady signs of defensive improvement throughout his pro hockey career. This is culminating in his status as being the next one up. He’s a defensive prospect who’s shown excellent value in his draft position, and his development has trended up faster than expected.
Solovyov’s spot in the lineup
In Solovyov’s two NHL games, his defensive partner was no other than Chris Tanev. The two have played over 25 minutes of 5v5 time together, with no significant minutes shared between Solovyov and any other defenceman. The sum total of 5v5 minutes Solovyov has played without Tanev is less than five minutes so far, split between every other defenceman in pretty much shift changes.
With that knowledge, the Flames could look to bring this pairing back together for comfort and familiarity, but there’s an argument to be made that Solovyov could benefit from playing with someone else. The pairing was a bit hemmed in their own zone when playing together.
However, one of the games was indeed the Heritage Classic in an uncontrolled environment with less-than-ideal ice conditions. So the reasonable thing to do here is to get Solovyov integrated back into the rotation whether it’s with Tanev or someone else, and finally give him some consistent reps.
We’ll see how they utilise the defender soon enough as they continue their homestand.
Photo from @AHLWranglers.
