Exhibition hockey is back, and Calgary gets an early look at a roster full of players trying to carve out a spot.
The Flames open their pre-season Sunday night at home against the Seattle Kraken, with puck drop just after 6 p.m. MT.
The game will stream on Flames.com and air on QR Calgary, which also has a 90-minute pre-game show starting at 4:30 p.m. MT.
For Calgary, this first of four exhibition games comes with a lineup that blends a few familiar names with a heavy dose of players still pushing to move up the depth chart. According to QR Calgary’s Pat Steinberg, the projected forward group has Alex Nylander with Rory Kerins and Matvei Gridin, Sam Honzek with Ben Jones and Dryden Hunt, William Stromgren with Tyson Gross and Andrew Basha, and Brennan Othmann with Jonathan Castagna and Aydar Suniev.
On the back end, the Flames are slated to roll out Joel Hanley and Brayden Pachal, Yan Kuznetsov and Zayne Parekh, and Abram Wiebe and Hunter Brzustewicz. Devin Cooley is expected to start in goal and handle the full 60 minutes, with Arsenii Sergeev backing him up, according to head coach Ryan Huska.
The Calgary group includes what the team is treating as its “veterans” for this matchup: Nylander, Gridin, Honzek, Jones, Hunt, Hanley, Pachal, Kuznetsov, Parekh, Brzustewicz and Cooley. Among that group, Nylander, Hunt, Hanley, Pachal and Cooley are all 100-gamers.
It’s also a notable collection of younger players who saw plenty of time with the Flames last season. Gridin, Honzek, Kuznetsov, Parekh and Brzustewicz are all in the mix, while the rest of the roster is made up of players hovering around the edges of the NHL picture.
Call them bubble guys if you want. This is the kind of lineup loaded with players who know every shift matters.
Seattle arrives in Calgary already with one exhibition game under its belt. The Kraken opened their pre-season Saturday night against Vancouver and came away with a 4-2 win.
Based on the posted roster, the Kraken’s projected lines have Jani Nyman, Oscar Fisker Molgaard and Jagger Firkus together, followed by Carson Rehkopf, Logan Morrison and Ryan Winterton; Eduard Sale, Mitchell Stephens and Jon-Randall Avon; and Curtis Douglas, John Hayden and Nathan Villeneuve.
The blue line group is projected to feature Tyson Jugnauth with Ville Ottavainen, Gustav Olofsson with Ty Nelson, and Caden Price with Kaden Hammell. Philipp Grubauer and Nikke Kokko are the listed goaltenders.
Seattle’s “veterans” for this game are Douglas, Grubauer, Hayden, Olofsson, Sale, Stephens, Villeneuve and Winterton. A good portion of that group played in the win over Vancouver and then made the trip to Calgary, and the question now is how they handle a second straight night. Nelson, Nyman and Morrison all scored against the Canucks.
In Other News...
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Flames Just Put Hunter Brzustewicz In A Tough Spot
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The timing makes the situation even more interesting because the Flames spent the summer adding more bodies on the right side, including Simon Nemec. That only tightens the squeeze for a young defenseman trying to force his way into a regular role, and it leaves Brzustewicz in a tougher spot than he was a year ago. He still has camp to change the conversation, but the early alignment suggests Calgary is not making the path easy. [Read more 🡒]