There could be a line outside Ryan Huska’s hotel-room door on the next stop, a few snakebitten forwards wondering if the head coach could put ’em on the fourth line for the morning skate.
It certainly worked for Connor Zary.
After the fan-base fumed all afternoon over the news that Zary was supposed to skate with two of the muckers, the skilled sophomore responded by potting a pair of goals to lead the Flames to Tuesday’s 6-3 win over the Flyers in Phialdelphia.
Suffice to say, his stint as a depth dude didn’t last long.
The 23-year-old Zary, who’d been skunked in five games since returning from a knee injury, sparked an offensive outburst for the Calgary-based crew.
They scored on three of their first five shots in Philly, chasing Sam Ersson from the home crease.
They’d buried four by the end of the opening period, matching their combined total from four previous stops on this marathon road-trip.
With six strikes, they tied their season-high.
With the victory, the Flames snapped out of a three-game winless skid and snagged sole possession of the second wild-card in the Western Conference, although the Vancouver Canucks will have a chance to pull even Wednesday.
Here are three takeaways from Tuesday’s triumph at Wells Fargo Center, where Joel Farabee and Morgan Frost earned bragging rights in their first clash against their former team …
SHORT-LIVED DEMOTION
Huska insisted after Tuesday’s morning skate that he wasn’t trying to send a message by assigning Zary to grind it out with Ryan Lomberg and Kevin Rooney on the fourth line, characterizing it as an opportunity to “just keep building his game back up” and saying “you can expect him to get moved around a little bit at times.”
He was, in fact, on a bump-up shift with Jonathan Huberdeau and Nazem Kadri when he notched his first of the evening. He won a battle against his former roommate, Jakob Pelletier, and eventually headed to the net, where he managed to deflect a point shot from Brayden Pachal.
On his second snipe, taking a twirl with Lomberg and Rooney, Zary was actually looking to dish but noticed Ersson was over-committed to a potential pass and squeezed it past him on the short side.
“It felt great to get out there and kind of do what I’m supposed to be doing,” Zary told reporters in Philadelphia after scoring his 11th and 12th in his 46 appearances this season. “I think it takes a little bit of weight off your shoulders to allow me to just play. And it’s just good to get the two points and get the win. We needed that after how the last few games have gone. To put up six goals, that’s big too.”
After he tallied twice in the early stages, Zary was soon logging a more regular shift with Huberdeau and Kadri, who each finished the night with a pair of points.
“Sometimes with offensive players, when they score early, there’s a little excitement,” Huska explained. “And I felt like he deserved it, too, because he had a little bit more energy in his game tonight and he was skating. I always look at the feet for Connor. When his feet are moving, he’s a dynamic player and I thought he was much better for us tonight than what he had been.”
KEEP ME IN, COACH
Hey boss, if a stint on the fourth line isn’t an option, how about a breather as a healthy scratch?
Huska benched a pair of every-nighters for Sunday’s overtime loss in Carolina, and he must have been satisfied with the response from both.
Sharangovich certainly realized it was a bad sign that, after the Flames had been blanked in both Tampa and Sunrise, Huska would sit his leading marksman from last season.
Just 18 seconds after the Flyers trimmed the gap to 3-2 during Tuesday’s wild first frame, Sharangovich chopped a rebound past Ivan Fedotov to restore the two-goal edge. Later in the game, the 26-year-old sizzled a shot off the post as he tried for his second of the night.
Believe it or not, ’Sharky’ has zero multi-goal games in the current campaign. He had five of those last winter.
Pachal, meanwhile, returned from his first scratch of the season to assist on Zary’s icebreaker and post a plus-2 rating.
With his steady, surly style, we’d bet that Craig Conroy will receive several calls about Pachal in the lead-up to Friday’s trade deadline. We doubt Conroy is willing to listen on this rugged righty — he has already inked Pachal to a contract extension and they’ll need his physicality for the playoff push — but contenders will try.
WORKHORSE WEEGAR
MacKenzie Weegar collected a pair of points Tuesday, cashing a power-play goal early in the third and assisting on Matt Coronato’s late empty-netter.
A well-deserved reward for another workhorse night.
Weegar’s stat-sheet also showed four shots, three hits and two blocks. With that man-advantage marker, he ensured a nifty play by Frost — a flashy between-the-legs attempt that was followed by a heads-up pass toward the point — will be replayed on the highlight shows.
In six games since the 4 Nations break, Weegar has totalled 149:11 of icetime. He’s been Calgary’s leading minute-muncher in three of those contests, and second to Rasmus Andersson in the three others.
Which brings us back to Friday’s trade deadline, with the buzzer sounding at 1 p.m. MT …
We’re figuring Conroy will be relatively quiet, but a permanent partner for Weegar has gotta be at the top of his wish-list. He will want that guy to be a 20-something, preferably a left-shot, so this may be more of a summertime search.
Joel Hanley has been Weegar’s primary sidekick of late, although there has also been speculation that he could be a trade candidate as a pending unrestricted free agent.