Welcome to the next entry in The Win Column’s 2024 Calgary Flames Prospect Rankings. Coming in at the sixth spot we have a recent 2024 NHL draftee, and local Calgarian, Andrew Basha.
The Medicine Hat Tigers winger had an impressive 2023–24 WHL season leading many expecting him to go in the first round of the NHL draft, but eventually fell to the Flames with the 41st overall pick in the second round.
With Basha expected to be a major part of the Flames’ future, let’s take a look at the journey, skill set, and outlook of the future Flames winger.
Basha’s development so far
Growing up in Calgary, the late 2005-born winger first found footing with the local Calgary Royals U15 team. This early developmental step led to success and a spot on the WHL radar which resulted in a fifth-round, 105th overall selection by the Medicine Hat Tigers in the 2020 WHL Draft.
After stints with the Royals U18 and SAHA Prep U18 teams, the young winger then carved out a regular roster spot with the Tigers for the majority of the 2021–22 season. Serving largely in a checking role, Basha put up 14 points in 48 games in 2021–22.
The following season, the young Canadian unlocked more offensive elements, posting 56 points, followed by 85 this past season. All of this was en route to being named to the WHL Central Second All-Star team.
Basha’s strengths
Basha is a relentless presence in all three zones. Basha serves as a two-way forward with playmaking tendencies, and the awareness to be a large transitional asset on both defensive and offensive transition. The Tigers forward plays a complete game at the WHL level highlighted by his skating/compete level, senses and physicality.
Skating
Basha’s foundation of his game is his speed which manifests itself in the form of a good skating posture which produces above-average power, and has a clean integration of crossovers to generate even more speed and agility.
Basha’s lower-body flexibility and looseness help generate his rapid quickness, high-end agility, and relatively clean stride. No issues with ankle flexion or skating mechanics are a rarity for NHL prospects, but one that the Alberta product thrives in.
This skating base allows even his gliding to be quick compared to his fellow WHL players.
Equally good habits match this posture. Basha is an absolute threat in transition as he plays with a blistering pace due to full skating extensions, good lateral acceleration, and frequent integration of crossovers. This leads to him simply beating opposing WHL defenders with speed and pace alone.
Basha generates 5.5 zone entries via stick handling per game to best exemplify this speed. This hints towards Basha’s game being rush-orientated to an extent.
To match his skating, the Flames draftee also has high-end lane awareness, motor, and frequent play engagement. This skating and compete level combo makes him an asset as an offensive play supporter at the next level and as a heavy forechecker on the defensive end. Transitional play is Basha’s game.
Senses
The second-rounder proves to have a good hockey mind for both sides of the puck. Simply put his offensive and defensive awareness is obvious, little happens on the ice without Basha knowing from his consistent scans and above-average play anticipation through good space creation.
In both transition and zone play Basha shows good play reading through quality option identification, vision, and facilitation. These elements also allow his playmaking to thrive which is complemented by quality passing in terms of diversity (slip, bank straight line, seam), accuracy (85%), and puck placement.
Even when he is on the receiving end of passes, his strong hand-eye coordination makes it so that there is no such thing as a bad pass reception making him a large asset in both O-zone play and transition.
Basha’s spacial and offensive awareness adds another layer to his game. This combo makes the Tigers forward even more dangerous in the O-zone he understands how to effectively draw pressure, and then open play or passing lanes, demonstrating his overall acumen at creating space.
Particularly noticeable are his offensive zone entries where he beats defenders with sheer speed or a fake weight transfer, then cuts inside, and either sets up a quality passing play or charges the net himself.
His release is quite quick and particularly his one-timers display decent power and leverage. Taking about 5.5 shots per game with 57% shot accuracy does not detract from his game, but he is a much more capable play-supporter.
All of this awareness and offensive aptitude contribute to his 4:09 per game of power play time, and his 3.2 scoring chances per outing as well. It also explains why he starts 49% of his total shifts in the O-zone.
At the other end of the rink, Basha is creative in defensive transition as he can read opponent momentum well and establishes unique angles of attack, which allow him to get inside positioning on players.
The previously mentioned, skating and motor combined with his angles of attack make him an effective forechecker. This forechecking strength is done through good play reads, a strong active stick, and quality body positioning. Basha can effectively generate turnovers and exert lots of defensive pressure.
Rarely is he the last one back on the backcheck and for a multitude of positive reasons.
This defensive aptitude justifies his 1:56 of penalty kill time per game.
It goes without saying that Basha plays a thinker’s game of hockey.
Physicality
Basha shows strong physicality and puck pursuit in his game. This means even if he can’t transfer his offensive skill set to the next level he will be a capable energy line checker.
Basha loves to cause chaos through the inclusion of clean hits, and relentless battles for body positioning, and he also shows flashes of good board battles.
The same reasons he makes an effective forechecker he displays in the physical elements of his game mainly, his relentlessness pursuit of the puck, strong body positioning, and willingness to get involved in any sort of play.
Basha’s weaknesses
The main drawbacks of the 5’11 winger’s game is his lack of deception, maturity, and control. All of which can be improved as the player ages.
Deception
There are some notable weaknesses to Basha’s game primarly around his deception as he all too often uses a fake weight transfer, dangles, or a ill-timed pass in an attempt to deceive defenders. Quite often Basha forces plays, raising concerns about his risk assessment and some elements of his hockey IQ.
This element of forced plays via dekes is best displayed through his deke success rate sitting at 1.32 per game and deke fail rate at 1.01 per game.
Higher end WHL defenders can nullify Basha’s deception, so within a professional setting the viability of Basha’s attempted deception remains doubtful. So to add more elements of deception to his game like greater uses of changes of pace, or pass fakes could be beneficial for the young Canadian.
Maturity
Although Basha shows flashes of good puck protection, his game along the wall suffers from some outmuscling as players with bigger frames than the 5’11” Basha can occasionally get the better of the winger in board battles and wall play. This is best articulated by his 45% puck battle winning percentage.
As a player matures he will often become a better playmaker. This might be the case with Basha, as an offset of his blistering fast speed sometimes he does not wait for his offensive options to unfold. Often leading to instances where he valued pace above execution. This hints at struggles with offensive poise.
Overall there were moments in this past 2023–24 season where Basha struggled to drive offensive play serving as more of a passenger. Perhaps without the presence of Lindstorm, Basha will be more of a play driver himself on a strong Medicine Hat team in the immediate future.
Good thing for the Flames and Basha is these elements are things that come with greater maturity and experience and should gradually get better as the player ages.
Basha’s next steps
Expect the young Calgarian to be spending at least one more season with the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers. Basha should be a crucial element of the Tiger’s top-six forwards, playing alongside the likes of phenom Gavin McKenna, and fellow NHL draftees Thomas Mrsic, and Hunter St. Martin.
In the unlikely event that Cayden Lindstorm returns, expect even more high-end chemistry between the pair as well.
Lastly, expect his WHL ice time to slightly increase from the already heavy 19:53 per game.
NHL ETA: Two to three years.
Expected role: Middle-six forward but likely a high-quality top-nine forward.
Calgary Flames 2024 Top 15 Prospects
Honourable Mentions | #15 William Stromgren | #14 Jacob Battaglia | #13 Aydar Suniev | #12 Luke Misa | #11 Etienne Morin | #10 Henry Mews | #9 Samuel Honzek | #8 Matvei Gridin | #7 Jakob Pelletier | #6 Andrew Basha | #5 Jeremie Poirier | #4 Hunter Brzustewicz | #3 Matt Coronato | #2 Dustin Wolf | #1 Zayne Parekh
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