The Calgary Flames officially hit Saddledome ice on Monday for the first time in 2021. A full compliment of 41 players were put through their paces by head coach Geoff Ward and his assistants.
Here’s what you need to know from the first real day of camp.

Lines!

Via everyone’s pal Pat Steinberg, lines from the two practice groups:
Team Iginla
Andrew Mangiapane – Mikael Backlund – Sam Bennett
Milan Lucic – Derek Ryan – Dillon Dube
Emilio Petterssen – Glenn Gawdin – Luke Philp
Justin Kirkland – Adam Ruzicka – Matthew Phillips
Mark Giordano – Chris Tanev
Connor Mackey – Alex Petrovic
Carl-Johan Lerby – Michael Stone
Jacob Markstrom
Artyom Zagidulin
Garret Sparks
Team McDonald
Matthew Tkachuk- Elias Lindholm – Josh Leivo
Johnny Gaudreau – Sean Monahan – Dominik Simon
Joakim Nordstrom – Byron Froese – Buddy Robinson
Eetu Tuulola – Dmitry Zavgorodniy – Zac Rinaldo
Noah Hanifin – Rasmus Andersson
Juuso Valimaki – Nikita Nesterov
Colton Poolman – Alexander Yelesin
David Rittich
Louis Domingue
Not yet on the ice are Oliver Kylington (quarantining), Dustin Wolf, Jakob Pelletier and Connor Zary (World Juniors).
After the on-ice sessions, Ward noted that the plan is to keep the two groups intact likely through Thursday’s scrimmage, then make some swaps between them. In the meantime, he explained that the lines and pairings were put together to build some familiarity and chemistry – the Giordano/Tanev pairing will be killing penalties, so they need to build chemistry – and lines and pairs will likely change up throughout camp. So don’t get too married to any of the player groupings quite yet.

Markstrom has a famous number

Monday was the first look at Jacob Markstrom in Flames silks. He was asked about if he liked that his Vancouver number (#25) was available, and it led to an interesting tidbit. Markstrom asked the Flames staff if he could have #25 and when he discovered Joe Nieuwendyk’s exploits led to that number being inducted into the Forever A Flame program years back, he reached out to the Hockey Hall of Famer for permission to wear it.
Markstrom noted that he’s had a few conversations with new goalie coach Jason Labarbera, but they’ll begin to work more intensively with each other when Labarbera’s World Junior duties with Team Canada are complete later this week.

The AHL has a plan to play

Finally, the AHL unveiled their divisional alignment for their truncated 2020-21 season. The Flames’ top farm team, the Stockton Heat, will be one of 28 clubs playing. (Three teams opted out: Charlotte, Springfield and Milwaukee.)