How did Elson, Sieloff and Kylington do against Minnesota?

Three players made their National Hockey League debuts for the Calgary Flames last night in a 2-1 victory over the Minnesota Wild. Turner Elson, Patrick Sieloff and Oliver Kylington were summoned on short-notice from the American Hockey League’s Stockton Heat and pressed into service without so much as a morning skate.

So how did the three greenhorns do? All-in-all, they were actually pretty darn good considering the circumstances.

Making his NHL debut after 158 AHL appearances, Elson played 14:54 and had two hits and an assist for his efforts. He played a bit with everybody – likely due to Sean Monahan’s absence following the first period – and basically got his head kicked in possession-wise.

The numbers don’t tell the whole story – everybody had bad possession stats on the Flames – and Elson made a nice play beating the Wild defenders to a loose puck that led to Bollig’s game-tying goal. For a bottom-six player, he did just fine in a meaningless game. His play never hurt them, and he made a key play that helped them tie the game.

One of Calgary’s two second round picks in last June’s draft, the 18-year-old slotted in a bit with everybody but primarily played with T.J. Brodie. (Just typing that feels nice.)

He played 17:22 and he had a shot, a shot that was blocked, and blocked a shot.

He was okay possession-wise, and he really seemed to relish driving the puck up the ice and creating chances. His defensive zone play without the puck could still use some fine-tuning, but he never looked out of place and didn’t really get exposed at all. He’s 18, and as he matures physically he’ll probably figure out everything.

Dare I say it: he looked better as an 18-year-old in an NHL spot start than T.J. Brodie did as a 20-year-old in a similar situation.

The least-touted of Calgary’s three call-ups, Sieloff was a 2012 second round pick (selected after Mark “The Big” Jankowski). After playing just 98 AHL games through three seasons due to missing chunks of time to injury, he looked just fine. He played 17:59 – a little bit with everybody – and had a (game-winning) goal, a minor penalty, a shot, two shots that were blocked, three hits and two shot blocks.

To be honest? Aside from his goal, I barely noticed Sieloff. He plays a low-event game and is basically a poor man’s Deryk Engelland at this point: he’ll hit guys, try to grab the puck from them, and then dumps it into the offensive zone. It’s one game, mind you, and doesn’t suggest he’ll be an amazing NHLer, but he was perfectly fine and got rewarded with a goal.