‘Not that guy.’
That was, as Blake Coleman recalls, the sentiment inside the Tampa Bay Lightning locker room after opposing sparkplug Ryan Lomberg scored an overtime goal on behalf of the state rival Florida Panthers during a playoff series a few years back.
‘Not that guy.’
That’s what every other 5-foot-something in the NHL, even a rookie call-up who was hellbent on making a name for himself, would have been thinking as they lined up across from one of the NHL’s true heavyweights.
As many remember from his first stint with the Calgary Flames, Lomberg proved his fearlessness by picking a fight with Ross Johnston, totally ignoring a size mismatch of roughly eight inches and at least 50 pounds.
And if you were wondering this summer if the Panthers were getting any sleep in the days that followed their Stanley Cup triumph, you’d scroll through your social media feed, see another photo or video of Lomberg in life-of-the-party mode and say to yourself: ‘Definitely not that guy.’
He obviously buckled down immediately after his championship bender because he finished second on the Flames’ fitness-testing charts at the outset of training camp.
“He played the longest of anybody in our group, just won a Stanley Cup, and he didn’t take any time off,” Flames head coach Ryan Huska praised. “He missed catching Backs (Mikael Backlund) by just a little bit. That’s something I’m really proud of, and that’s one of the big reasons why we brought him into our room.”
There’s no doubt that Lomberg, 29, will be beloved in that room.
Already is.
“He’s just the best, he really is,” beamed blue-liner MacKenzie Weegar, Lomberg’s teammate in Florida and now once again in Calgary. “I’m happy to have him back here. He has so much energy, charisma, but he’s also a guy with a lot of integrity.
“I think he has an identity to him. He’s fast. I mean, he’s the ‘Lomberghini,’ right? He looks good out there with the hair flying around. But he also has a big engine on him. He drives hard. He plays hard. He plays like he’s eight feet tall. And even on the tough nights, he is the guy who is always the most positive, has the most energy.
“He brings the boys together. He’s a great locker room guy. I just have nothing but great things to say about him.”
After chasing down a Stanley Cup in Florida, Lomberg chose to return to Calgary as an unrestricted free agent. He inked a two-year contract with an annual cap hit of $2 million US.
If you’re curious who was most excited to get this deal done, it would be a coin-flip between the rambunctious left winger and general manager Craig Conroy.
The Flames have talked at length about being harder to play against and Lomberg, as a fixture on the fourth line, will be a ringleader in that regard. His speed and determination should be an asset on the penalty kill and he’ll be there to offer a pick-me-up if a teammate is struggling or to stick up for somebody who was just cheap-shotted by an opponent.
“This was somewhere I saw myself being back, somewhere I wanted to be,” Lomberg said. “And it’s definitely a time in the organization where I feel like I can help in multiple ways.
“I feel like, personally, I can get the most out of it for myself and I’ll be able to, I believe, help this team more than any other team.”
You may not realize that Lomberg logged only 11 big-league appearances, totalling barely 70 minutes of ice time, during his initial tour with the Flames. Listed at 5-foot-9 and 184 pounds, this feisty forward might hold some sort of franchise record for the fastest ascent to fan-fave status, at least among guys who were never considered hot-shot prospects.
The ‘Lomberghini’ last revved at the Saddledome during the 2018-19 campaign, with just two roster holdovers from his first go-round with the club.
Workhorse rearguard Rasmus Andersson described his returning buddy as “a beauty” and added, “I know the love Conny had for him, so it did not surprise me at all when we signed him.”
Backlund, the current captain in Calgary, has never forgotten that Lomberg once earned a suspension for rushing to his defence, reminding: “When I got hit by (Matt) Dumba, he just flew right off the bench. He didn’t even think twice about it. That says a lot about him and I’ve been thankful for him doing that for me.”
Lomberg also played with Martin Pospisil at AHL Stockton and is now reunited with two of his former farm club skippers — Huska and his assistant, Cail MacLean.
It’s not just his old friends, however, who are fired up about this off-season acquisition.
“I remember when we were in Florida last year, him and I were going at it a little bit,” said Kevin Rooney, who has been working as Lomberg’s centre during training camp. “And once we signed him, I was thinking, ‘Thank God, he’ll be on our team now.’ He’s a guy who just brings everyone into the fight.”
“Yeah, I had some good run-ins with Lombo,” added Coleman, reminiscing on his own stay in the Sunshine State, where he won back-to-back titles with the Lightning. “He’s hard not to remember. He’s a firecracker. He’s one of those guys, he just gets under your skin. I know he scored an OT winner against us in Tampa (in 2021) and it was just the one guy you didn’t want to score, you know?
“But I do remember after that series, for how much I hated him on the ice, he was very respectful. He was just doing his job. I think he’s a great add for us.”
Lomberg proved over the past two winters that he can be counted on as an every-nighter. He suited up for all 82 in 2022-23 and for 75 games this past season. With the Panthers adding a couple of forward rentals at the trade deadline, he dressed for eight playoff dates during their Stanley Cup run.
While the Cats would have loved to keep him, that pesky salary cap prevented it. It’s hardly a surprise that a handful of other teams showed serious interest.
Lomberg returns to Calgary with what he describes as a more mature game — “Same energy, same physicality, same intensity, all that good stuff. Just kind of more direct with it, and smarter.”
He didn’t necessarily look like one of the grinders with a gorgeous pass to Brayden Pachal for a goal in the early stages of Monday’s exhibition against the Seattle Kraken. (Lomberg, with three points in as many pre-season outings and his spot on the roster assured, didn’t travel to Winnipeg for Wednesday’s tuneup against the Jets.)
He also returns as a proud papa. He and his wife have a son, a daughter and another baby on the way.
“So we’re going to have three under three,” he said.
That sounds exhausting, but if there’s a dad who can handle it, it might be Lomberg.
“This guy is just a ball of energy,” Flames winger Jonathan Huberdeau said on the first day of training camp. “Even today, I’m breathing heavy and I just look around and he’s just talking, having fun. I’m like, ‘Here we go.’ He’s going to be a good leader for us. Just the way he handles himself, he’s always positive and that’s always good to have a guy like that.”
“He’s a champion, so I’m sure there’s a lot of teams that wanted him,” Weegar added of Lomberg, who has 28 goals, 50 points and 359 penalty minutes in 257 career contests. “The fact that he wanted to come back to this organization, I think it says a lot about the players here. And not only that, but about our coach and our GM. He has a great relationship with them. Him being a champion that wants to come back here, I think it’s great for our culture.”
Lomberg is adamant that the external expectations for the 2024-25 Flames are way out of whack. He believes they’ll be better than they’re getting credit for.
Whether this squad is full of surprises or floundering near the bottom of the standings, the consensus is this welcome-back winger will be an important tone-setter and locker-room leader.
Huska characterized him as “uber-positive.” That showed at roughly 9:10 a.m. on a Sunday morning during camp, when Lomberg cashed a goal in practice and crashed into the boards in celebration, a massive smile on his face.
Some players get their names engraved on the Stanley Cup and maybe let their foot off the gas a little.
Not this guy.
“After winning it, reaping all the benefits, and just the internal feeling you get of accomplishing something like that, it’s something I can’t even put into words,” Lomberg said. “Something I’ll tell the boys is it’s more worth it than you could even imagine.
“It’s harder to achieve than you can imagine, but the fulfillment you get inside and everything that comes after, it’s way, way bigger and more powerful than you think it will be.”