They were world-junior teammates and then minor-league roommates.
Now skating side-by-side as NHL linemates, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Jakob Pelletier and Connor Zary have shown signs of an immediate click.
You don’t necessarily need to be buddy-buddy to combine for goals and assists, but as Calgary Flames fans are seeing with Pelletier and Zary, some history doesn’t hurt.
“It’s one of those things where you feel like you have a little extra chemistry,” Zary said. “You just get to know a guy so well. You know what he does on the ice. You know his game. I mean, we lived together for two years, so you get pretty close.
“That, for sure, makes things easier. And I think it also makes us want to keep it going and want to do that for each other.”
The Flames will return to practice Friday after their holiday break, having dozed off the tryptophan — the amino acid in turkey that is blamed for that drowsy feeling after your Christmas feast — and ready to resume their quest for a trip to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
It would make sense for head coach Ryan Huska to stick with the line combos that have worked during a four-game point streak, although there were a couple of overtime letdowns during that 2-0-2 run.
That would include the trio of Pelletier, Zary and Yegor Sharangovich.
“He has been my best friend since I first arrived in this organization,” Pelletier said of his current centre. “Since we were 20, we lived together. We lived together in Stockton. We lived together in our first year in Calgary with the Wranglers. So we kind of went through everything together.
“I remember in Stockton, we had a small house and a small couch too, and he was playing Xbox on the TV over here and I was playing Xbox on the TV over there,” he continued, pointing as if he was giving a tour of their old living room in California. “We were just together all the time. It was nice.”
Pelletier and Zary joined the Flames as first-round picks in successive drafts, one in 2019 and the other in 2020.
They have been viewed since then as BFFs — Big Future Factors.
These 23-year-olds have, along the way, become BFFs away from the rink, the chatterbox from Quebec City and his calm-and-cool friend from Saskatoon. When Pelletier was placed on waivers in early October, Zary was among the first to text with words of encouragement.
“I think we probably met for the first time at Under-18 Worlds (in 2019),” Zary reminisced. “From there, we did all the Hockey Canada stuff together and then obviously when we were both drafted by the Flames, you go to camps together, you hang out together, lived together in Stockton, lived together in Calgary. Probably a bit of a mess sometimes, just joking around and being idiots a lot, but it was always fun.
“Just little things like that, you keep building a relationship. And then when you get an opportunity to play with a guy who has been one of your best friends, it makes the game a little more fun, right?”
It has so far been fun to watch.
In the Flames’ final outing before the holidays, a 6-4 home victory over the Chicago Blackhawks, Zary notched his eighth goal of the season thanks to a nifty no-look pass from his pal.
Two nights earlier, it was Zary doing the dishing, attracting the attention of two defenders before sliding a between-the-legs beauty to Pelletier. Ultimately, a toe-save by Ottawa Senators stalwart Linus Ullmark prevented that sequence from showing up on the game summary.
It’s a small sample size, but in about 42 minutes of even-strength action as linemates, Pelletier and Zary have made a habit of out-scoring, out-shooting and out-chancing their opponents. With Nos. 22 and 47 both on the ice at five-on-five, Natural Stat Trick credits the Flames with a 56.1 per cent share of the scoring opportunities. That is better than their numbers when skating separately.
Could this be a long-term fit, a dynamic duo for several seasons to come?
That likely hinges on whether Pelletier proves that he can be a consistent offensive contributor at the NHL level. Some figure that the energetic winger is best suited for a depth role, but he was an assists machine this fall with the Wranglers and has chipped in four points in eight games since he was rewarded with a call-up.
Zary currently sits third on the Flames’ team scoring charts and may already as a sophomore be Calgary’s most dynamic forward, so his linemates need to be capable of helping on the attack.
“It’s been amazing to play with him,” Pelletier said of Zary, his teammate on Canada’s silver-medal squad at the 2021 edition of the world junior tournament. “And I think the more we’re going to play together, the more chemistry is going to come too. I think we’ve kind of showed that already.”
ICE CHIPS: Next up for the Flames, who hit the holidays at 16-11-7, is Saturday’s showdown with the Sharks in San Jose. That’s an 8 p.m. puck drop on Hockey Night in Canada.