“For example, you do a solo bike and he’s just behind me and yelling at me, like, ‘Keep going! Keep going!,’ ” a grinning Honzek told reporters at summer development camp. “Sometimes, I want to just punch him because it’s annoying. But it’s that extra motivation. He’s pushing me forward, and I’m really grateful for that.”
“Seeing some of the (fitness) results … I know Sam took a huge step,” praised Flames director of player development Ray Edwards.
“He looks really good,” Pospisil agreed. “Hopefully, he is going to transfer it to on the ice, but he looks really good. He did a lot of good stuff off the ice. And on the ice, it was fun to practice with him. Some days, he was the one pushing me.”
Now 19, Honzek is ready to push for a job in the pro ranks. He wants to be an NHL regular sooner than later and aims to be a foundational-type piece by a very specific juncture.
“When the arena is going to be built, the new Saddledome … I want to be in the opening lineup,” Honzek declared. “That’s my long-term goal.”
In the short-term, Honzek will be among the focal points for the Flames at the 2024 Young Stars Classic in Penticton, B.C., one of a hat-trick of recent first-rounders on Calgary’s roster for the annual prospect tournament. (Zayne Parekh and Matvei Gridin, a pair of prized picks from this summer, are the others.)
“I’m really excited for Penticton because it’s been a long time since I’ve played games,” Honzek said before the Flames’ rookie-campers departed for the four-team showcase in B.C.’s Okanagan Valley. “It’s been too much off-season now. Finally, back to the games.”
The wait has probably been particularly tough on Honzek, who didn’t play nearly as many games as he was hoping during the 2023-24 campaign.
Instead of a massive leap, a dominant farewell to the junior ranks, his development came in fits and starts due to a variety of injuries, beginning with one that he suffered during his first training camp in Calgary.
He was ultimately limited to a total of 46 outings — 38 as captain of the WHL’s Vancouver Giants, five with Slovakia’s world-junior squad and three during an end-of-season eye-opener with the AHL’s Wranglers. If he’d been healthy, he would have logged nearly twice that many.
Honzek realizes that Flames fans are worried about his injury issues. He described the summer as “a really good reset,” stressed he “did everything I could in the off-season to prevent those,” and added that mobility was a major focus.
As long as he can stay in the lineup, the appeal is obvious.
Now listed at 6-foot-4 and 195 lb., he is the most promising power-forward type in Calgary’s pipeline. He has the sort of soft hands to be a future finisher, perhaps a net-front fixture on the man-advantage.
Keep in mind that he’s three years younger than Connor Zary and two younger than Matt Coronato. He’s a long way from a finished product and will no doubt need some seasoning at the minor-league level.
While Honzek doesn’t play that same salty style as Pospisil, who emerged last winter as one of the NHL’s newest nuisances, the hope is that he’ll benefit big-time from all those jeez-I-wish-I-could-punch-you-right-now summer sessions.
Summing up his approach to his workouts, the 24-year-old Pospisil reasoned: “If you can, you have to push through it. There are going to be some games that you’re tired or you can’t move, but it’s all about in your head. You’re always going to have in your head that you have to stop, but you have to have more percentage in your head that you can still do it. That’s what it’s all about.”
“Obviously, with Marty, he’s so motivated now,” Edwards added. “He’s got that taste and he doesn’t want to lose it. And Marty has always been hard, you know what I mean? Everything he does is hard. That’s just the way he is wired. So to have Sam there with him, I think it’s toughening him up. It’s like, ‘No, you have to do an extra set. You have to do an extra bike ride. No, that’s not good enough. Push, push, push.’ And that’s really good for a guy like Sam.”
Honzek figures the same.
And he’s excited to show it.
“Pospy, his story is really, really good because of what he’s been through and still he made his dream become true,” Honzek said, offering a reminder that Pospisil had to persevere through plenty of injuries of his own. “It’s really good and inspiring. So I’m trying to work my hardest to be next to him in the lineup.”
“At the end of the day, I think it was a really good decision to train with him. I hope it’s going to be worth it right now.”