I’m a firm believer in retiring numbers. I don’t think it should be done often, but I do believe that, when a player becomes so special to a franchise, his number deserves a formal retirement. Nothing gimmicky, just a to-the-point banner raising as nobody ever gets to wear that number for that team ever again.

Some players are worth it.

The #12 should be one of those. It’s early yet, but it’s really easy to see a future in which the #13 joins it.

Johnny Gaudreau is just the sixth player in Flames history to ever wear #13:

Wow, what a barren wasteland. The number itself does carry some bad luck connotations, but there really isn’t much here at all. Over decades, just six guys? And maybe that’ll be it, ever? That’s kind of insane – though #14 only saw seven players ever wear it…

The Flames were all up there in regards to Titov, Cammalleri, and Jokinen’s careers in terms of where they spent the most time: first for Titov, second for Cammalleri and Jokinen. 

Cammalleri easily looks like the best one to wear the number, but we should note Gaudreau is only two seasons into his career. That said, he’s already got 160 NHL games under his belt, and 143 points through them.

Gaudreau is a .894 point per game player this early into his career, and I believe it’s entirely possible he reaches that career point per game mark, and maybe even passes it. He doesn’t yet have the years the aforementioned three players do, so his resume is still developing – but the way it’s going, yeah, this number is going to be his and his alone.