The big news among Calgary Flames prospects this week was the return of Samuel Honzek and everything that came with it. In addition to his return to action, Honzek was named team captain of the Vancouver Giants and named to Slovakia’s preliminary roster for the upcoming World Junior Championship. In his second game back, Honzek potted a pair of goals against fellow Flames prospect Parker Bell and the Tri-City Americans. That’s a heck of a week for one player! Determined not to be outshone, Bell added five points to his totals.
So much to get into this week, 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.
Flames prospect happenings
AHL
- Matt Coronato continued to torch the AHL, padding his stats with another goal and two assists. He’s up to 18 points in 14 games, and his performance in the AHL has made his case that he’s ready for another call-up.
- Emilio Pettersen also had a goal and two assists and is looking very good at the AHL level this year.
- Another two goals and an assist for Rory Kerins, who continues to climb the Wranglers leaderboard despite not suiting up for the first six games. He is now fifth in team scoring behind Coronato, Ben Jones, Adam Klapka and Pettersen.
- Speaking of Jones, he continued his consistent play by adding a pair of assists this week.
- Ilya Solovyov received a call-up to the NHL on December 1, and teammate Dustin Wolf was called up on December 5 due to an injury to starting goaltender Jacob Markstrom.
BCHL
- After going scoreless in his debut for the Penticton Vees, Cade Littler notched four helpers over the next three games.
ECHL
- Nope, still nothing to see here as none of the Flames’ prospects have been assigned to the Rapid City Rush.
Europe
- It was another dud for Axel Hurtig in Sweden, as he followed up last week’s goose egg with another.
- After putting up four points in his debut in the U20 last week, Topi Ronni settled for one assist over two games this week. Five points in three games does still look nice though!
- Yegor Yegorov saw action this week, stopping 25 of 26 shots on goal in a 2–1 win over Krylya Sovetov.
NCAA
- After a solid start to the year, Aydar Suniev has slowed down recently. He did not record any points this week and is down to just two points in his last five games, and four points in his last 10.
- Jake Boltmann played two games this week, and that’s all we can say about him.
- Arseni Sergeev did not play this week. Until he improves his game—he has a .881 save percentage over his last five games—he is the clear backup for UConn.
QMJHL
- It was an off-week for Etienne Morin as he was unable to pad his point totals through two contests this week. He’ll be back!
WHL
- The Vancouver Giants named Samuel Honzek their team captain, and he delivered quickly. Through his first three games since returning from injury, Honzek scored a pair of goals and added three assists. Check out this clip of Honzek receiving the C in front of his teammates:
- Jaden Lipinski added four helpers this week; he’s up to 21 points in 27 games for the Giants.
- Parker Bell did not want to share the spotlight this week and it showed in his play as he scored three times and added two assists. Have a look at the pair of goals he scored in a 7–4 loss to the Wenatchee Wild on December 3:
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)
- Jeremie Poirier: 69.7 (Same)
- Connor Zary: 66.6 (Same)
- Matt Coronato: 51.4 (Same)
- Samuel Honzek: 41.4 (New)
- Martin Pospisil: 39.9 (-1)
Overall regular season totals for Flames prospects
Forwards
| Player | Position | GP | G | A | P | P/GP | PIM | NHLe | Team | League |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parker Bell | LW | 19 | 10 | 11 | 21 | 1.11 | 6 | 27.5 | Tri-City Americans | WHL |
| Lucas Ciona | LW | 18 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0.11 | 15 | 4.4 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Matt Coronato | RW/LW | 14 | 8 | 10 | 18 | 1.29 | 2 | 51.4 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Mathias Emilio Pettersen | C/LW | 20 | 4 | 11 | 15 | 0.75 | 10 | 29.9 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Samuel Honzek | LW/C | 3 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 1.67 | 4 | 41.4 | Vancouver Giants | WHL |
| Ben Jones | C | 20 | 6 | 12 | 18 | 0.90 | 14 | 35.9 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Rory Kerins | C/LW | 14 | 6 | 6 | 12 | 0.86 | 0 | 34.3 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Adam Klapka | RW | 20 | 8 | 8 | 16 | 0.80 | 30 | 31.9 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Jaden Lipinski | C | 27 | 7 | 14 | 21 | 0.78 | 32 | 19.3 | Vancouver Giants | WHL |
| Cade Littler | C | 14 | 8 | 3 | 11 | 0.79 | 10 | 17.5 | Cedar Rapids RoughRiders | USHL |
| 4 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 1.00 | 2 | 10.7 | Penticton Vees | BCHL | ||
| Ilya Nikolayev | C | 9 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0.44 | 0 | 17.5 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Martin Pospisil | C/W | 6 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 1.00 | 6 | 39.9 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Topi Ronni | C | 13 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0.15 | 4 | 5.6 | Tappara | Liiga |
| 3 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 1.67 | 4 | N/A | Tappara U20 | U20 SM-sarja | ||
| Cole Schwindt | C/RW | 20 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 0.45 | 8 | 17.9 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| William Stromgren | LW | 18 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0.11 | 8 | 4.4 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Aydar Suniev | LW | 13 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 0.46 | 15 | 14.8 | UMass | NCAA |
| Connor Zary | C | 6 | 1 | 9 | 10 | 1.67 | 2 | 66.6 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
Defencemen
| Player | Position | GP | G | A | P | P/GP | PIM | NHLe | Team | League |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jake Boltmann | RHD | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 0 | Notre Dame | NCAA |
| Axel Hurtig | LHD | 11 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 0.45 | 27 | N/A | Rogle BK J20 | J20 Nationell |
| Yan Kuznetsov | LHD | 20 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 0.20 | 6 | 8.0 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Etienne Morin | LHD | 21 | 5 | 13 | 18 | 0.86 | 6 | 20.0 | Moncton Wildcats | QMJHL |
| Jeremie Poirier | LHD | 4 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 1.75 | 0 | 69.7 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Ilya Solovyov | LHD | 16 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 0.31 | 12 | 12.4 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
Goalies
| Player | Position | GP | GAA | SV% | Team | League |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arseni Sergeev | G | 6 | 2.82 | 0.897 | University of Connecticut | NCAA |
| Dustin Wolf | G | 13 | 2.50 | 0.920 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Yegor Yegorov | G | 12 | 2.09 | 0.925 | MHK Dynamo Moskva | MHL |
Following the prospects
Staying up to date with the development of prospects is no easy task. Follow along throughout the season for the latest happenings in the entire Flames’ development pipelines!
