The 23-man roster is set. The 2024-25 campaign is about to get underway.
The Calgary Flames will open their regular-season slate with Wednesday’s clash against the Canucks in Vancouver.
Here’s a bit of food for thought as you wait for the main course — 25 things we wonder about this current cast of Flames …
We wonder if Rasmus Andersson will be representing his country at the 4 Nations Face-Off in February. Before you argue that this doesn’t much matter to the Flames, keep in mind the depth of defencemen from Sweden. If Andersson can crack that lineup, he’s having a heck of a season and finally getting the credit he deserves.
We wonder where Mikael Backlund plans to display his silver stick, the customary gift for any NHLer who hits quadruple digits in career games played. Backlund, 35, takes tremendous pride in these milestone moments — as he should — and he’s about to become just the second dude in franchise history to log 1,000 appearances in a Flames jersey.
We wonder if Kevin Bahl can be the top-four defenceman the Flames are lacking. An injury kept Bahl out of the early days of training camp, so we haven’t seen much of his partnership with Rasmus Andersson. The Flames believe he can play a big role, though, and after suiting up for all 82 games with the New Jersey Devils last season, he’s proven he can handle life in the NHL.
We wonder if Tyson Barrie can resurrect his career. Barrie had a long summer waiting for a contract offer before accepting a one-year deal with the Flames after a training camp tryout. Now, the 33-year-old has to prove that his offensive prowess hasn’t faded while showing that he’s got the veteran savvy and defensive responsibility to earn playing time.
We wonder if Jake Bean will be one of those guys who thrives in his home city, or if it doesn’t turn out quite how he’d dreamed it. In the history of Calgary-raised talents to wear the Flaming C, from Mike Vernon to Joe Colborne to Hunter Shinkaruk, there are examples on both sides.
We wonder how Blake Coleman will follow up a 30-goal campaign. En route to his career-best burst in 2023-24, this heart-and-soul winger repeated time and time again that these were the type of scoring stats that he always expected from himself. That tells you that he believes he can do it again.
We wonder if Matt Coronato can work his way into regular NHL games. Coronato was in and out of the lineup last winter, but the Flames’ first-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft worked all off-season to improve his skating and get his body ready for full-time NHL action. He’s going to have to earn it, though, as the Flames have decent depth on the wings when they’re healthy, which is why Coronato is currently skating as a spare.
We wonder how often Joel Hanley gets into the lineup. There can be some boring stretches for a seventh blue-liner — and Hanley is actually eighth on the depth chart. If there are injury issues, the Flames will also consider recalling one of the kids.
We wonder if Sam Honzek can stick in the NHL for the entire season. Sometimes, rookies will hit a wall — like, for example, Matt Coronato did a year ago — and require a minor-league stint. Even if that turns out to be true with Honzek, the 19-year-old has served notice of a very bright future.
We wonder if Jonathan Huberdeau can find his game again. It has not been a great start to Huberdeau’s tenure in Calgary. After picking up only 55 points in his first season at the Saddledome, that number shrunk to 52 in 2023-24. He’s the team’s highest-paid player and is signed for this year and then six more, so it would be a huge boost if he could get back to being something close to a point-a-game producer.
We wonder if Nazem Kadri can do more of the same. Kadri led the Flames in points last season, with 75, and deserves a lot of credit for how he helped Connor Zary and Martin Pospisil adapt to the NHL. At 34 years old and with 903 NHL games under his belt, he’s showing no signs of slowing down and should anchor a fun line with Andrei Kuzmenko and Yegor Sharangovich, who will miss the early days of the season with an injury.
We wonder if Adam Klapka is here to stay. Klapka’s game has improved by leaps and bounds since he arrived in North America to play with the Wranglers in 2022 and he has earned an opening-night job on the fourth line. At 6-foot-8 and weighing 235 pounds, he’s got the size to make an impact and will hopefully provide a real spark.
We wonder if Andrei Kuzmenko can lead the Flames in goals. After scoring 39 two years ago with the Canucks, Kuzmenko fell out of favour with a new coach in Vancouver and came to the Flames in the deal that sent Elias Lindholm to the West Coast. He scored 14 goals and added 11 assists in 29 games after arrival, and he has a dynamic offensive skill set few others on the Flames come close to matching.
We wonder if the Lomberghini, Ryan Lomberg, has enough gas in the tank. This guy oozes energy, so it probably won’t be a concern, but Lomberg has been to the Stanley Cup final in back-to-back years and those short off-seasons can eventually start to take a toll, especially for a player who needs to keep his intensity cranked to 11.
We wonder if Anthony Mantha can click with Jonathan Huberdeau. One is a pass-first playmaker and the other has a howitzer of a shot, so it might just work. And if it does, we wonder how that might impact the Flames’ approach with Mantha as the trade deadline nears. Signed for just one season, he could be shopped as a rental.
We wonder if a healthy Daniil Miromanov can be a steal for the Flames. Acquired in the swap that sent Noah Hanifin to the Vegas Golden Knights, Miromanov scored three goals and added four assists in 20 games for the Flames last season. Remember, though, that he wasn’t 100 per cent as he continued his recovery from major knee surgery. Happy and healthy, the hope is they’ve only seen him scratch the surface of his potential.
We wonder if Brayden Pachal will actually turn out to be Calgary’s most attractive trade chip as the deadline nears. Think about it — Pachal is a right-handed rearguard, provides some snarl and comes with a league minimum cap hit. He fits the profile of the sort of depth piece that contenders are always looking for, although the Flames might prefer to keep him around as a pending restricted free agent.
We wonder if Martin Pospisil can have the same sort of impact at centre. This doesn’t feel like a reach, since head coach Ryan Huska has mentioned that he’s wondering the same. The Flames would like more speed up the middle, but they still need Pospisil to wreak havoc on the forecheck and ensure that opponents have to keep their heads on a swivel. Can he balance that with the added responsibilities of the pivot position?
We wonder if Kevin Rooney can continue to stave off Sam Morton for the fourth-line centre role. Rooney has earned the trust of the coaching staff with his penalty-killing prowess, no-fuss approach to forechecking and his work at the faceoff dot. It will be important to keep that up since Morton had a strong camp before being returned to the Wranglers.
We wonder how soon Yegor Sharangovich will be back. He’s officially week-to-week with a lower-body injury. We don’t need to wonder how much the Flames will miss him while he’s out. The answer is a lot. ’Sharky’ is a first-line forward, plays both sides of special teams and is an ace in the shootout.
We wonder if Dan Vladar can fill Jacob Markstrom’s shoes. It’s going to be an ongoing competition between Vladar and Dustin Wolf for the starting goaltending job, but ideally one of them is going to step up and make it his own. For three seasons with the Flames and one with the Boston Bruins, Vladar has performed admirably as a backup. After hip surgery in March, he’s healthy and hopefully ready for more.
We wonder if MacKenzie Weegar can do even more. Last season, Weegar put up career numbers when he scored 20 goals and 32 assists. He’s a big part of the Flames leadership group and, to put it plainly, is one of their best players. They’ll need more of the same in this new campaign, and no hockey fan in Calgary is going to complain if he somehow elevates his game even more.
We wonder if Dustin Wolf has seen the last of the American Hockey League. Wolf remains waiver-exempt but the 23-year-old netminder believes that he is overdue to be a full-time NHLer and as long as he proves that with his performance, the Wranglers can re-issue that No. 32 jersey.
We wonder if Connor Zary can make the leap. Zary was a revelation in 2023-24, earning a call-up from the minors early in the season and never looking back. He played 63 games and scored 14 goals while adding 20 assists. Expectations are high for Season 2. He should be one of the most exciting players on the entire Flames roster, as long as he can avoid the dreaded sophomore slump.
We promised a list of 25, and we won’t sell you short. We wonder what Flames general manager general manager Craig Conroy has up his sleeve next. And how long will we be waiting to find out?
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