Flames announce 2018 training camp roster

With most of their big guns in China for the 2018 ORG China Games, the Calgary Flames have announced their training camp roster.

As you’d expect given the circumstances, it’s rather heavy on rookies and players on professional tryout agreements. The roster includes 69 players: seven goaltenders, 24 defensemen and 38 forwards.

Until the China trip is over, the domestic roster includes two on-ice groups.

Here’s the breakdown of the domestic side of the roster:

(Goalie Shane Farkas has been cut and returned to Portland of the WHL.)

The remainder of the players are already Flames property or under NHL contracts. Given the nature of this year’s camp, expect most of these tryout players to stick around until around Sept. 23 when the China group is fully integrated into the domestic camp group.

Looking at the roster compositions, it should be easy for the Flames’ young defenders to stand out. Team Macoun is basically Juuso Valimaki and a bunch of random dudes. Team Berezan features Oliver Kylington, Marcus Hogstrom and a bunch of dudes.

The exciting young forwards are seemingly split 50-50: Dillon Dube and Matthew Phillips on Team Macoun, while Spencer Foo and Andrew Mangiapane are on Team Berezan.

In goal, comparing youngster Tyler Parsons to journeyman Jeff Glass on Team Macoun could also be quite enlightening.

Generally speaking, training camp groupings are kept together for preseason games, so it’ll be interesting to see how things are split up and which players are mixed and matched together over the next few weeks.

The on-ice portion of camp kicks off Friday morning at the Scotiabank Saddledome. The first domestic preseason game is Monday night at the Saddledome against Edmonton.