Friends, the 2026-27 season is the first year of the new National Hockey League collective bargaining agreement, and there are two big changes that impact how teams juggle their rosters throughout the pre-season calendar.

First, due to the regular season being extended to 84 games (from 82), exhibition games are now limited to four per team, down from eight in the prior CBA.

The other change involves how many games veteran players can be involved in.

We shall adjust our glasses like the nerds we are, and direct your attention to Section 15.4 (a) of the CBA:

20 players on the Flames’ current training camp roster have played in 100 or more career NHL games and are impacted by the new rule:

(Jonathan Huberdeau is still working his way back from hip resurfacing surgery, and isn’t expected to play in any pre-season games.)

Conversely, players who haven’t played in 100 career games can potentially play in all of the games. That means that some of the Flames most exciting up-and-comers – such as Matvei Gridin, Samuel Honzek, Aydar Suniev, Yan Kuznetsov, Zayne Parekh and Hunter Brzustewicz – could potentially play quite a bit during the four game exhibition calendar.

You’ll probably see a very veteran-laden lineup in the final pre-season game next Saturday in Edmonton. But with much of the veteran group limited to team pre-season appearances, we could see some pretty varied lineups in the other three games, starting on Sunday night at home against Seattle.

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