Ben Jones is getting his shot with the Calgary Flames, and he arrives in the kind of form that makes a call-up hard to ignore.
The 27-year-old forward will make his season debut for Calgary after tearing through the opening stretch with the Calgary Wranglers, where he piled up seven goals and nine points in seven games to start the American Hockey League season.
“It’ll be great to see a lot of those guys. It’s kind of funny to flip the switch, I gotta make sure I pass to the team in red, not the team in green,” he joked.
Jones’ path back to the Flames comes with Mikael Backlund out with an upper-body injury, a vacancy that could give him a real opening to settle into Calgary’s lineup and make an impression.
The organization already knows what he can do. Jones joined the Flames in the offseason, but he’s been around the Wranglers since their first season and was a big part of their 2022-23 debut campaign.
That year, he put up 54 points and finished at plus-28 as Calgary won the Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophy as the AHL’s regular-season champion and also took the Pacific Division title.
Now in his 10th professional season, Jones brings a resume that includes both AHL production and NHL time. He has 56 career NHL games under his belt with the Vegas Golden Knights and Wild, experience that gives him a little more grounding as he tries to stick at the highest level.
His start in the minors certainly helps. Seven goals in seven games is the kind of production that forces attention, even if the NHL asks a different question entirely.
For Jones, the assignment is simple: take advantage of the opportunity, help provide depth down the middle, and show the coaching staff that the confidence and finishing touch he’s shown with the Wranglers can follow him to Calgary.
The Flames have been searching for steadiness early on, and Jones is arriving with a hot stick at just the right moment.
The only thing left is the adjustment he already seems to understand best: pass to the guys in red.
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Parekhs role has been especially notable because it hints at how the Flames are trying to build something more dynamic with the puck moving around the perimeter and seams opening up. Huska has liked the progress, and the young defenseman has talked about the groups growth as it starts to find a rhythm. For a team that was searching for life in this spot a year ago, the encouraging part is not just that the results have improved, but that the confidence appears to be building with it. [Read more 🡒]