Both Rasmus Andersson and Ryan Huska remember a fair bit of “headbutting” in the first year they knew each other.
They’ve come a long way.
Back in 2016-17, Huska was the head coach of the Calgary Flames’ AHL affiliate, the Stockton Heat.
And long before Andersson was starring on the Flames blueline and playing in his 500th NHL game on Saturday night against the Winnipeg Jets, he was a second-round draft pick who was dealing with some growing pains as he tried to figure out life as a professional hockey player with the Heat.
There were some tense moments, to be sure.
“It wasn’t so much chirping, at the end of the year I think he probably would have pushed me over a bridge if he could have,” Huska told Flames TV in Winnipeg. “You see the potential he had as a player and our organization, that first year he turned pro, we spent a lot of time with him from the strength and conditioning guys in Stockton, to all the coaches, to the medical people.
“There was a reason we really pushed to develop this guy, because we knew there was a lot we could try to get out from him.”
Today, both Huska and Andersson can look back at their long-ago headbutting and smile. Nearly a decade later, Huska is the head coach of the Flames while Andersson is an alternate captain for the team and will be representing Sweden at the Four Nations Cup next month.
He was also set to play his 500th NHL game on Saturday, with every single one of them coming in a Flames uniform. Only seven defencemen – Paul Reinhart, Jamie Macoun, Gary Suter, TJ Brodie, Al MacInnis, Robyn Regehr and Mark Giordano – have played more for the team.
Even if he might have been frustrated with Huska at times in that first year, he can appreciate what his head coach did for him.
“There was quite a bit of headbutting with Husk first year, but without him I wouldn’t be here,” Andersson told FlamesTV in Winnipeg. “He’s been with me every year in the organization, we’ve had our ups and downs but I’ve got a lot to thank him for, for sure.
“It was a little bit of everything at some points. He wanted me to become a pro and on and off the ice and I only understood the on-ice part, but not the off-ice part. He’s helped me come a long way and I look back at it with a smile, for sure.”
Over the course of his 500 games, Andersson has emerged as one of the Flames’ most important players.
He’s a top-pairing defenceman who leads the team in ice-time this season and an important part of the leadership group.
This season, though, there have been persistent trade rumours surrounding his name. He’s reiterated that he would like to stay in Calgary after his current contract expires at the conclusion of the 2025-26 season, but that hasn’t necessarily quieted the whispers about whether the Flames should flip him for draft picks and young assets.
The Flames can’t begin to negotiate a new deal with Andersson until the summer, but when GM Craig Conroy appeared on Sportsnet during the first intermission of Thursday’s loss to the St. Louis Blues, he was pretty clear that he’d love to keep the Swedish defenceman around.
“Rasmus is a huge part of the team,” Conroy said. “The one thing we’ve talked numerous times he and I, he wants to be a Flame, he wants to be competitive and he’s still got the year. We can’t do anything until July 1, but I see Rasmus as a Flame, I do.”