Joel Hanley went from healthy scratch to top-pairing duty in a matter of minutes Friday night, and the Calgary Flames defender made the most of the sudden call.
For most of the night, Hanley was living the usual healthy-scratch routine. He got to the rink, sat in on the pre-game meetings and started his warm-up as the extra skater, just like he had so many times this season. Through the Flames’ first 16 games of the 2026-27 campaign, he had dressed just once, with his lone appearance coming Oct. 3 in Vancouver.
Then everything changed about 15 minutes before warm-up. Kevin Bahl was ruled out with a lower-body injury, and Hanley was told he’d be going in against the Anaheim Ducks. Not only that, he was jumping straight onto the top pairing with Simon Nemec.
Hanley responded with a goal in the first period, his first since Apr. 5, 2025, but Calgary still fell 5-3 to Anaheim. William Strömgren and Joel Farabee also scored for the Flames.
“Yeah, it was crazy,” said Hanley post-game. “I didn’t think I was going to be playing, and then all of a sudden, they told me I was in, so I just tried to dial it in as quick as I could.
Obviously, nice to chip in offensively. It’s been a while.
It would have been nice to get a win there to make it feel a little bit better.”
He said the trainers gave him the news just before he was set to hit the ice for warm-up.
“So we were playing soccer,” said Hanley. “And then all of a sudden I had to go warm up a little bit harder and activate the glutes a bit.”
Hanley logged 16:42 alongside Nemec. The goal was a nice jolt, but he also finished on the ice for two Ducks goals.
Ryan Huska said the Flames tried to keep Hanley ready for exactly this kind of moment.
“You know, it’s a hard position for a player to be in, but it’s the NHL and that’s the job at times,” said Huska. “And the one thing with Joel, we kept him around the room when he took most warm-ups, which is harder for an older player to do that all the time, because we wanted him around our meetings.
We wanted to make sure he was up on things because it was a matter of time before he got himself back in the lineup. So to get thrown in like he did and played well, I think he deserves a lot of credit for that, for sure.”
The Flames are back Sunday at home against the Philadelphia Flyers.
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