Parker Bell continued producing in the WHL, while fellow prospects Topi Ronni and Aydar Suniev each had a solid week in the U20 SM-sarja and NCAA respectively. On the cooler side, Etienne Morin continued to trend in the wrong direction in the QMJHL.
In the AHL, we saw Oliver Kylington make his return to professional hockey after missing nearly 20 months.
Across the pond, Yegor Yegorov posted excellent numbers while backstopping his junior team to a pair of wins.
And—of course—our weekly burning question: did Jake Boltmann get a point? Prepare your answer now, because this week might just surprise you!
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
- The Calgary Wranglers split a pair of games with the Ontario Reign, with each team scoring four goals over the two games.
- He may not be a prospect anymore, but Oliver Kylington suiting up sure is exciting news these days. He helped the Wranglers to a 3–2 win over the Reign. It was the first time he’s played professional hockey since the end of the 2021–22 season and boy was it great to see him back. He was held out of the second game for load management.
- Dustin Wolf was between the pipes for both games, stopping 47 of 51 shots. Wolf was recalled from the Wranglers yesterday because Calgary Flames goaltender Jacob Markstrom is out with an injury.
- Yan Kuznetsov was reassigned to the Wranglers after spending most of the week with the Flames. He played just under 12 minutes in the Flames’ 6–3 win over the Ottawa Senators.
- Matt Coronato, Rory Kerins, Adam Klapka, and Cole Schwindt each had an assist over the two games.
- Lucas Ciona scored his second goal of the year. He now has more goals for the Wranglers than Connor Zary.
BCHL
- Another goal and assist for Cade Littler in the BCHL this week.
ECHL
- Wow, so empty here! It’s probably a good sign that none of the Flames prospects are playing in the ECHL.
Europe
- Topi Ronni racked up five points (1–4) in two games in the Finnish U20 this week.
- Axel Hurtig split two games again this week between the Swedish J20 and the third-division HockeyEttan. He added an assist to his totals in the J20.
- In the Russian junior league, Yegor Yegorov started two of his team’s three games and won both. He made 58 saves on 61 shots over the two games.
- No games for Daniil Chechelev this week, after getting shelled in his first start in the VHL.
NCAA
- How many points did you guess Jake Boltmann had this week? It was a trick! He didn’t play in either of his team’s games.
- Three assists in two games for Aydar Suniev at UMass. Check out this secondary assist he picked up:
- Arseni Sergeev played in one game this week, picking up a 27-save shutout for UConn.
QMJHL
- Through two games, Etienne Morin picked up one assist for Moncton. He’s been trending down since his hot start to the year, but he’s still been productive and looked good doing it. His assist this week was a secondary one, but he deserved two assists on this play:
WHL
- Parker Bell scored three goals this week and continued his point-per-game production for the Tri-City Americans. All three goals came in a 6–5 loss to the Edmonton Oil Kings on January 11.
- Vancouver Giants captain Samuel Honzek added a pair of assists through three games.
- After an incredible seven points in two games last week, Jaden Lipinski came crashing back down to Earth with just one assist through four games.
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: 42.6 (Same)
- Martin Pospisil: 39.9 (Same)
- Rory Kerins: 31.1 (New)
Overall regular season totals for Flames prospects
Forwards
| Player | Position | GP | G | A | P | P/GP | PIM | NHLe | Team | League |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parker Bell | LW | 32 | 19 | 16 | 35 | 1.09 | 17 | 27.0 | Tri-City Americans | WHL |
| Lucas Ciona | LW | 31 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0.10 | 27 | 4.0 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Matt Coronato | RW/LW | 27 | 12 | 17 | 29 | 1.07 | 8 | 42.6 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Mathias Emilio Pettersen | C/LW | 35 | 7 | 19 | 26 | 0.74 | 12 | 29.5 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Samuel Honzek | LW/C | 9 | 4 | 7 | 11 | 1.22 | 4 | 30.2 | Vancouver Giants | WHL |
| Ben Jones | C | 35 | 11 | 12 | 23 | 0.66 | 26 | 26.3 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Rory Kerins | C/LW | 27 | 9 | 12 | 21 | 0.78 | 4 | 31.1 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Adam Klapka | RW | 33 | 10 | 11 | 21 | 0.64 | 42 | 25.5 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Jaden Lipinski | C | 41 | 12 | 26 | 38 | 0.93 | 41 | 23.0 | Vancouver Giants | WHL |
| Cade Littler | C | 14 | 8 | 3 | 11 | 0.79 | 10 | 17.5 | Cedar Rapids RoughRiders | USHL |
| 15 | 5 | 8 | 13 | 0.87 | 12 | 9.3 | Penticton Vees | BCHL | ||
| Ilya Nikolayev | C | 18 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 0.28 | 6 | 11.2 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Martin Pospisil | C/W | 6 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 1.00 | 6 | 39.9 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Topi Ronni | C | 19 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0.11 | 4 | 4.1 | Tappara | Liiga |
| 9 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 1.67 | 8 | N/A | Tappara U20 | U20 SM-sarja | ||
| Cole Schwindt | C/RW | 35 | 8 | 10 | 18 | 0.51 | 10 | 20.3 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| William Stromgren | LW | 32 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 0.13 | 10 | 5.2 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Aydar Suniev | LW | 20 | 8 | 9 | 17 | 0.85 | 17 | 27.4 | 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 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18 | 0 | Notre Dame | NCAA |
| Axel Hurtig | LHD | 14 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 0.50 | 29 | N/A | Rogle BK J20 | J20 Nationell |
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0 | Rogle BK | SHL | ||
| 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0.50 | 0 | N/A | Kristianstads IK | HockeyEttan | ||
| Yan Kuznetsov | LHD | 31 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 0.23 | 13 | 9.2 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Etienne Morin | LHD | 33 | 8 | 21 | 29 | 0.88 | 10 | 20.5 | Moncton Wildcats | QMJHL |
| Jeremie Poirier | LHD | 4 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 1.75 | 0 | 69.7 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Ilya Solovyov | LHD | 27 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 0.22 | 16 | 8.8 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
Goalies
| Player | Position | GP | GAA | SV% | Team | League |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arseni Sergeev | G | 7 | 2.40 | 0.912 | University of Connecticut | NCAA |
| Dustin Wolf | G | 23 | 2.27 | 0.929 | Calgary Wranglers | AHL |
| Yegor Yegorov | G | 19 | 1.93 | 0.931 | MHK Dynamo Moskva | MHL |
| Daniil Chechelev | G | 1 | 3.10 | 0.889 | Ryazan-VDV | VHL |
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!
Photo from @AHLWranglers.
