The Calgary Flames have begun their 2022-23 season, starting it off with a 5-3 victory over Colorado. The victory begins a season where a lot of public analytical models have the Flames rated quite highly.

Here’s a glance at the various models and how the Flames fared via those models prior to Thursday’s season-opener.

Over at The Athletic, Dom’s model is one of the best because his visualizations make it easy to digest. He’s pretty bullish on the Flames, projecting them to lead the Pacific Division and finish just a smidge behind Colorado in the conference standings. Under Dom’s model, the Flames have the third-best chances of winning the Stanley Cup (trailing behind Toronto and Colorado).

JFresh’s model is another that’s high on the Flames, again putting them just behind Colorado in the Western Conference regular season standings. JFresh is a bit higher on the Jets and Canucks than some other models, predicting five Canadian teams to make the playoffs – Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto.

MoneyPuck is really high on the Flames. High enough to have them as the top Stanley Cup contender going into the season. Even in terms of regular season performance, MoneyPuck is higher on the Flames than the other major models.

Admittedly a model I’m less familiar with, PuckLuck produced some interesting results. Vancouver winning the division!? Edmonton finishing as a wildcard team!? The model is bold, if nothing else.

The odds-makers at DraftKings have the Flames as a very likely playoff team and one of the top couple teams in the Pacific Division.

Micah’s model is the lowest on the Flames, with just 93.4 points – it also produces zero 100-point teams. But he’s still projecting the Flames as a playoff team, albeit as a wildcard team.