The Calgary Flames are off to one of their best starts to a season in recent memory. Not only did they win their first four games, the team has gotten scoring from up and down their lineup. However, beyond the NHL team, the organization is looking strong from top to bottom. Let’s break it down:
An impressive start for the Calgary Flames
I don’t think anyone had the Flames going 4-0-1 through their first five games, nor did anyone have Jonathan Huberdeau leading the team in scoring in that time. The Flames have looked really good on the ice. Aside from a not great outing against the Seattle Kraken, where they lost in overtime, the Flames have played hard and looked really good to start the year.
The Flames’ four lines have all looked good right off the start, with Connor Zary fitting in particularly well with Mikael Backlund and Blake Coleman on the team’s shutdown line. Matt Coronato has taken a massive step forward, going from the bottom line up to the top line, and who can forget how good Martin Pospisil has looked at centre, somehow making Huberdeau look like an elite playmaker for the first time since he arrived in Calgary.
And they have done that while missing Yegor Sharangovich and Kevin Rooney right off the hop. They also lost Sam Honzek, who was playing on the top line, just a few games into the season. Rooney and Honzek aside, losing a top line winger to start the year and still not losing in regulation is a massive accomplishment for this team.
Even if this is not a sustainable start for this team, the fact that the team is playing hard and making games fun to watch is well worth it. Even if you are on #TeamTank, you have to admit that the team playing well together is great to see. This tweet really sums it all up:
Calgary Wranglers lead the Pacific Division
As good as the Flames have been in Calgary, the Calgary Wranglers have been off to a phenomenal start as well. The team sits at the top off the Pacific Division with a 4-1-0 record through their first five games.
The team also has the top three scorers in the league currently, with Rory Kerins, Walker Duehr, and Jakob Pelletier all having eight points in five games. Kerins has been particularly impressive with the centreman logging seven goals after being part of the Flames’ third training camp group to start the year.
The Flames have also been getting outstanding goaltending from Devin Cooley. Through four games he has one shutout and a 0.940 save percentage. He is also the only netminder to have played four games so far this year, and sits 13th in save percentage in the league.
A very small sample size, but the Wranglers have gotten worse over each of the last four years. The team was expected to have at least one of Coronato. Adam Klapka, or Honzek to start the year and they have none of the above. Of the team’s top-ten scorers last season, they have just three left in the lineup this season in Jonathan Aspirot (5th) Kerins (6th), William Stromgren (8th). This is credit to incredible coaching from Trent Cull, who has continued to get the most out of the guys in the organization.
More bodies than spots across the organization
For the first time in a long time it feels like the Flames have an embarrassment of riches in the organization. The team has gone 4-0-1 through five games despite missing two key starters in Sharangovich and Rooney, and also missing Honzek.
The team has three players above a point-per-game in the AHL who they don’t have room for, as well as Clark Bishop and Dryden Hunt, who have both played NHL games, who are at a point-per-game so far this season.
They have been able to effectively rotate through seven defencemen, with Daniil Miromanov, Jake Bean, and Tyson Barrie each sitting at least one game this season. This while not yet playing Joel Hanley on the blueline even once. All this while keeping Ilya Solovyov, Hunter Brzustewicz, Yan Kuznetsov, Jarred Tinordi, and Jeremie Poirier down in the AHL so far this year. The Wranglers also have Joni Jurmo on the blueline, who has yet to see AHL action this season.
It finally feels like the team has depth in the organization that can slide into the NHL.
Flames prospects on fire this season
Outside of the AHL and the NHL, the Flames’ future looks incredibly bright. Last year’s first round pick Zayne Parekh has nine points in eight games as a defenceman in the OHL, while former third round pick Etienne Morin has 13 points in nine games in the QMJHL.
At forward, Aydar Suniev has seven points in five games as a sophomore at UMass, and continues to look outstanding. Andrew Basha and Jacob Battaglia are both over a point per game, with the latter having 16 points in 10 games for the Kingston Frontenacs.
In net, Arseni Sergeev has a 0.928 save percentage in the NCAA while Yegor Yegorov has a 0.917 save percentage in Russia’s MHL. Kirill Zarubin is at a 0.909 save percentage in six games in the MHL as well. Goalies are always hard to predict, but this is a very good start regardless.
The team has seven prospects at or above a point-per-game so far this season, which is an unbelievable number relative to the past few years. While the argument can be made that most of these players translate to middle-six roles, with Parekh being the key exception, there is a very good chance that one or two could push their way up the depth chart.
The hope is real in Calgary
Perhaps more than anything else, there is a sense of optimism around the team. It finally feels like the organization under Craig Conroy has turned the corner and is going to start making good decisions. The Flames drafted exceptionally well last year, made reasonably smart gambles in the summertime, and are on their way to building one of the best prospect pools in the league.
But even more than that, it feels like they understand what went wrong the last time they rebuilt in the early 2010s and are determined not to make the same mistakes again. This team is good but it is far from perfect. There is a distinct lack of depth, particularly at centre, and a lack of high-end talent that you only get from drafting early.
The former centreman Conroy definitely understands this need well, as the Flames went through that issue for most of the Jarome Iginla era post-Conroy. Even the last rebuilt showed that if you are lacking one clear piece of high end talent, in that case a right winger, the team will be spinning its wheels until it is addressed.
But the belief in Conroy is real. He has made good decisions to this point and has won over much of the fanbase. There is work to be done with this team, but it feels like the right man is at the helm. There is so much to like with the franchise right now, and honestly, the excellent start is just the tip of the iceberg.
