Flames numbers firsts: #52, Brandon Bollig; #67, Michael Frolik; #79, Micheal Ferland

The Flames do not have a history of having high numbers. That changed last year, when they signed Michael Frolik in free agency. 

The problem? Frolik had only ever worn #67 through his entire career, just one number below Jaromir Jagr. To force him to switch to a new number just because some people don’t like numbers above 40 would have been, well, rude.

So Frolik got to stick with #67, and became the first Flame to wear it. Brandon Bollig switched back to his original #52, and became the first Flame to wear that number. And Micheal Ferland simply stuck with his original #79; he’d previously worn #27 with the Brandon Wheat Kings, but there was some seniority already present on the team in that case.

Bollig is the only one to have worn a different number with the Flames before: when he was traded for in the 2014 off-season, the Flames were still in their whole “no high numbers” phase, so he simply swapped his #52 into a #25. Aka Joe Nieuwendyk’s number. Because that was fitting.

Well, clearly it’s Frolik, and it’s not even close. What’s probably the most eye opening thing here is that Ferland already has as many career points as Bollig, and he’s played 144 fewer games. It does kind of help highlight just what was the point, exactly, of acquiring such a player when they can be found pretty much anywhere – including in a team’s own already-existing system.