Labour Day is just over a week away, and that means fall is creeping around the corner. With all the falling leaves, flannels, and pumpkin spice lattes also comes hockey. This fall, hockey in Calgary might be a little bit different. Expectations have changed from a year ago and the Calgary Flames of 2024–25 will include a lot of fresh faces.
With the team’s big losses defensively, and a rookie goaltender eyeing the crease, offence will be especially important this season. Last season the Flames had five players score 50 or more points. Nazem Kadri scored 75, Yegor Sharangovich 59, Blake Coleman 54, and MacKenzie Weegar and Jonathan Huberdeau had 52 points. We wanted to know how many 50-point scorers Flames fans think the team will have next season.
We asked, you answered.
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One, two, three, four, who will score 50 or more?
We presented the below poll to our readers.
One single 50-point scorer
Ahh, the pessimists of the group. 14% of voters think only one Flames player will score 50+ points next season. Team Tank had a solid showing on this one.
My follow-up question is, who is that one player?
The most likely scenario I see with this faction of fans is Nazem Kadri. Kadri led the team in points respectably last season with 75, making it his third straight with 50 plus points. In conjunction with his four 50-point teammates scoring at most 59 points last season, Kadri makes the most sense.
Whoever it is, if only one player scores 50+ points next season they will have to put up a 250-point tally for the team to have a chance at winning 30 games.
A pair of half-century scorers
Finishing in second is two. The fitting finish in this week’s poll collected 27% of the vote. Regression is desirable in this market these days—after all, draft lotteries don’t win themselves.
Although, if only two players score 50+ points next season, it would be a huge disappointment. Blake Coleman seems the most likely player to regress as it was a career-high season and, no offence to Blake, I see Yegor Sharengovich and Jonathan Huberdeau’s offensive potential being a little higher.
The biggest thing to discuss here is if Jonathan Huberdeau regresses. With the signing of Anthony Mantha it’s been clearer than ever that management is trying to find players to fill his line. Mantha and Huberdeau have skated together in offseasons prior and both hail from Quebec.
After a historical drop off from 115 points in 2021–22 to 55 in 2022–23, Huberdeau didn’t have a bounceback season with only 52 in 2023–24. No matter the number of 50-point scorers on the Flames this season, Huberdeau needs to be one of them. Ideally a 60–70+ guy but that could be lofty expectations with his current resume in Calgary.
Three Flames reaching the threshold
Collecting first place in this week’s poll with 42% of votes, a large faction of respondents think three Flames break 50 points next season. As mentioned, Sharangovich, Coleman and Weegar were all among the Flames’ 50-point players to have career seasons last year.
It seems Weegar could repeat his 52-point season, but he did score 20 goals last season off an incredible 9.6 shooting percentage, almost 5% higher than his career average. If he can repeat that performance it would be absolutely amazing, but it seems his goal-scoring should come down a bit.
Coleman’s career season with 54 came as somewhat of a surprise as well. The two-way, middle-six stud found himself with a hot hand often last season. He always seemed to be in the right place at the right time and also had a personal best shooting percentage season with a whopping 15.7% of his shots hitting the twine. Not to mention he earned four of his career-high 30 goals on the penalty kill. At 32 years old Coleman still has gas left in the tank but with his role and a previous career high of 38 points, it seems likely he will also show some regression.
Yegor Sharangovich, as opposed to Weegar and Coleman, was looking for a fresh start in Calgary last season and he got it in full. Sharagovich posted career-highs with 59 points and 31 goals, surpassing his previous highs of 24 and 46 respectively. Sharangovich is entering the prime of his career and looks to get ample offensive opportunities this coming season.
Sharangovich is by far the most offensively skilled between him, Coleman, and Weegar and in my eyes is the most likely third Flame to score 50 points alongside Huberdeau and Kadri next season.
Flames could find offence yet
Finally some positivity. Well, sort of. 17% of respondents think the Flames will have slightly fewer, just as many, or more 50 goal scores than last season as the umbrella option of four or more finishes third in this week’s poll.
It would be amazing to see this happen next season and although it’s unlikely, the team has a lot of potential 50+ point players. Three of last season’s 50-point scorers can realistically repeat. Plus, Andrei Kuzmenko scored 25 points in 29 games with the team last season and despite that being a small sample size, he seems hungry to return to his rookie season form of 79 points with Vancouver in 2022–23.
Not to mention Connor Zary scored 34 points as a rookie last season playing in 63 games and newly signed Flame Anthony Mantha scored a combined 44 points with Washington and Vegas last season. There are a lot of guys who could be right on the bubble.
Offensive drought
Calgary has struggled to score the last two seasons and long gone are the days of having two 100-point forwards on the same line. Craig Conroy has often talked about modelling the Dallas Stars rebuild. The Stars had nine 50+ point players last year. When your offence is spread that wide, it means your team is incredibly deep and often is reflected by wins.
The difference is Calgary is just beginning their retool while Dallas is three years post theirs. The amount of 50-point players is important, but having certain players surpass 50 points might be a better thing to focus on this upcoming Flames season.
Buckle up Flames fans, if this poll is any indication, it sounds like you all think the offensive drought will continue too.
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