Over 51 seasons, 658 different players have suited up for at least one game with the Calgary Flames and their predecessors in Atlanta. On Wednesday evening in Vancouver, four players will join those ranks.

In Wednesday’s season-opener against the Canucks, we’ll see the NHL debut for rookie Sam Honzek, as well as the first Flames appearances for blueliners Kevin Bahl and Jake Bean and forward Anthony Mantha.

Here’s a quick look at the four newest Flames.

This is probably the one fans are excited about the most.

The Flames’ first-rounder in 2023 – and the first player ever drafted by Craig Conroy after he became general manager – Honzek’s NHL debut on the Flames’ first line alongside Nazem Kadri and Andrei Kuzmenko represents a heck of a turnaround for him.

In case you were unaware, he attended last season’s NHL camp and suffered an injury in his final pre-season game. Due to that injury he didn’t play his first WHL game until December, scuttling the Vancouver Giants’ plans to try him out at centre and basically putting him behind the eight-ball for the remainder of the season. He had a pretty solid season, but pretty solid is usually a disappointment for first-round picks.

Instead of licking his wounds, Honzek teamed up with fellow Slovak Martin Pospisil and trained with him for the summer, and ended up being the most impressive player in Flames camp. He’ll be the 42nd player selected by the Flames in the first round to play a game for the franchise.

Acquired from New Jersey in the Jacob Markstrom trade back in June, Bahl was originally drafted by Arizona in 2018 and was sent to the Devils the following year in the Taylor Hall trade.

Despite his relative inexperience – he’s dressed for just 148 NHL games and has just one full NHL season under his belt – Bahl’s a player that’s easy to find enthusiasm for because of his size, skills, and strong underlying results over the past few seasons. He’ll be paired with Rasmus Andersson to start the season.

The son of longtime Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation executive John Bean, a homegrown Calgarian, and a prominent former member of the Calgary Hitmen, Bean’s coming home after signing a two year deal in free agency. He’ll be the sixth Hitmen product to play for the Flames.

A first-round pick back in 2016 by Carolina, Bean was a really good WHLer and a really good AHLer, but he hasn’t quite unlocked how to do what made him so effective in those leagues in the NHL. He was traded from Carolina to Columbus in 2021 and had a 81 game stretch where he looked as good as he ever had in the NHL… then suffered a shoulder injury that required surgery and seemed to regress when he returned.

He’s back home, and hoping to find the mojo that made him a first-round pick.

Finally, Mantha joins the Flames on a one year free agent contract after splitting last season between Washington and Vegas. He’s been pretty consistently a strong offensive contributor throughout his career – he’s surpassed 20 goals three times – but he hasn’t found a level beyond that in the NHL as of yet.

Even if he’s “just” an offensive winger who’s hoping to rekindle some chemistry with Jonathan Huberdeau and enjoy some power play time on a team with few established offensive weapons, Mantha could be a really useful player this season. Point of fact: he had 20 even strength goals last season, a career high. He’s not just a power play specialist if placed with the right linemates.