Martin Pospisil is getting a real look down the middle for the Calgary Flames, and the early signs suggest the coaching staff wants to see if he can settle into a fourth-line center job.
The Flames opened 2026-27 training camp on Thursday morning with Pospisil lined up at centre on the fourth line rotation, flanked by Adam Klapka and a rotating right side that included try-out winger Alex Nylander and newly-acquired Maxim Tysplakov.
After that first skate, head coach Ryan Huska explained why the team is exploring Pospisil in that spot.
“Well, let me put it this way,” said Huska, via Flames TV. “I watched Marty at the World Championships again this year play in the middle of the ice and he did a really good job. And he stayed in that position the entire time.”
Pospisil’s work with Slovakia at the 2026 World Championships clearly left an impression. He played in his second World Championship for his country, wore an alternate captain’s letter, and logged 16:21 per game over seven contests. That ranked fourth among Slovakian forwards, and he also won 55.6% of the 144 faceoffs he took.
That kind of usage matters here because Pospisil hasn’t really been handed a long runway as an NHL center. He spent a stretch of 2024-25 at the position and saw occasional time there when healthy in 2025-26, but more often than not he’s been used as a movable piece, shifted around the lineup as a utility forward.
The World Championship, though, put him in the middle for an extended stretch on a Slovak team without much NHL experience, and it sounds like that version of Pospisil is the one Huska wants to test again.
“Now, I bounced him around a little bit last year,” added Huska. “So we’re, in conversations that we’ve had, he’s going to stay there for a bit. He’s going to have an opportunity to fill in that role and I think when you look at that line, could work.”
There’s also a special teams angle here. Huska said Pospisil will be used on the penalty kill, which gives him another path to carve out value. With Blake Coleman gone, there’s a clear opening for somebody to take on more responsibility, and the Flames are interested in seeing whether Pospisil can handle it.
If he can keep winning faceoffs and give the penalty kill another option, that would go a long way. And with general manager Craig Conroy calling 2026-27 an “evaluation year,” the message is plain: Calgary wants to sort out what it already has, especially with young forwards pushing for jobs and more on the way.
“We need some competition there,” said Huska. “We have some young guys that are pushing. We know who those players are, but I want to give Marty that opportunity.”
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