Folks, it’s safe to say that the Calgary Flames have been going through a bit of a transitional period under head coach Ryan Huska and general manager Craig Conroy. Now, we can debate the precise nature of that transition – we’ve heard from the denizens of Team Tank over the past 81 games – but regardless, we’ve seen quite a few new faces make their NHL debuts with the Flames.

And on Thursday night, in the Flames’ swan song for the 2024-25 season, we should be seeing four more players get their first NHL reps.

The quartet of fresh faces are forwards Sam Morton and Aydar Suniev, and defencemen Hunter Brzustewicz and Zayne Parekh.

The 25-year-old Morton, an American from Lafayette, Colorado, is a left shot centre who originally joined the Flames as a college free agent signing out of Minnesota State (Mankato). He had a really strong finish to last season with the Wranglers, and he’s emerged as a really reliable 200-foot presence for them this season. He hasn’t been an offensive powerhouse or anything, but on a team that’s had a lot of turnover in their roster this season due to injuries and call-ups, he’s been a really consistent contributor all season.

The 20-year-old Suniev, a Russian from Kazan, Russia, is a left shot winger who was selected by the Flames in the third round in 2023. He starred with the BCHL’s Penticton Vees in his draft year, and he then spent two seasons learning and growing with the University of Massachusetts in the NCAA. A poised, smart forward with a heck of a shot, he scored 20 goals for the Minutemen this past season and grew into a really trusted player for his team’s coaching staff.

The 20-year-old Brzustewicz, an American from Washington Township, Michigan, is a right-shot blueliner who was originally selected in the third round by Vancouver in 2023. He came over to the Flames in the Elias Lindholm trade, and he’s quietly had a really effective season as a rookie blueliner in the AHL with the Wranglers. He displayed a tremendous scoring touch in the OHL and while that hasn’t quite arrived in the A yet, he’s shown flashes of that confidence and poise with the puck this season.

The 19-year-old Parekh, a Canadian from Nobleton, Ontario, is a right shot blueliner who was originally selected by the Flames at ninth overall in 2024. Parekh is really, really good. How good? He’s the first OHL blueliner to surpass the 100 point total since Ryan Ellis in 2010-11, and the first OHL blueliner in history to have back-to-back 30 goal seasons – Bobby Orr did it back when the league was called the OHA. Parekh will be the 40th Flames first-round pick to play games with the franchise.

This quartet of debuts will give the Flames six this season – Sam Honzek and Rory Kerins did so earlier this season – and 11 in two seasons under Huska’s guidance. This may be the first time in Flames history that four players have all made their debuts in a single game; the next-closest we could find was a couple somewhat recent examples of three debuts in a game: way back on Apr. 11, 2015, when the Flames had Sam Bennett, Brett Kulak and John Ramage all get their first NHL action in during the final game of the 2014-15 season. The Flames also had three debuts in the 2015-16 swan song (on Apr. 9, 2016), with Turner Elson, Oliver Kylington and Patrick Sieloff debuting.