3 Calgary Flames players appear on ESPN’s 2023-24 top 100 ranking

The NHL regular season is finally here, and with games that matter starting back up again, ESPN has dropped their top 100 player list for 2023-24. The full article is linked here, but the main focus was on how many Calgary Flames players were within the top 100. Only three made the cut.

It’s not much of a surprise to see Elias Lindholm, Jonathan Huberdeau, and Nazem Kadri on the list, considering a new head coach and system change could certainly benefit them and their outputs this season. However, the one thing that I found to be most intriguing was that there were no Calgary defensemen listed anywhere. MacKenzie Weegar, who was fantastic on defence and more than solid on offense over the course of 2022-23, wasn’t featured. Nor was Rasmus Andersson, who had an incredibly strong offensive year in 2022-23 as well, scoring 11 goals and barely missing the 50-point mark, which only 19 defensemen hit.

Of course, it’s important to note that these are listed as predictions in the title of the article, so if the ESPN staff doesn’t foresee one of the Flames defencemen stepping up in a big way this season, that would be a reason to keep them off this list. However, we’ve seen some solid play from Noah Hanifin, Andersson, and Weegar so far. The Flames have a talented back-end, arguably the most deep in the NHL, so it was a bit of a shock not to see any Flames defencemen’s names listed.

Nonetheless, we will see how the three forwards that the writers listed live up to their positions on the list. They have important jobs to do this season for the Flames in the scoring and offensive output departments, and the hope is that they will be better than expected.