It’s early, but several Calgary Flames are impressing at the World Championships

After a fairly disappointing end to the 2022-23 regular season, three established members of the Calgary Flames headed to Europe for the World Championships in order to finish their season on a brighter note. Similarly, a top prospect headed to Europe to extend his season and gain some big game experience.

Three days into round robin play, the Flames’ four representatives at the annual tournament are performing quite well.

Team USA has played against Finland (the defending champions, Hungary and Germany thus far. They have three regulation wins and sit atop Group A heading into Tuesday’s games.

2021 first-rounder Matt Coronato is representing the Flames on Team USA. He’s lining up as their fourth line centre. He’s not setting the world on fire with his face-off prowess – he’s won well below half of his draws – but he’s providing a nice offensive boost.

He scored the game-winning goal against Germany (on the power play) on Monday. His 15 shots on goal trail only Cutter Gauthier among American skaters.

The United States has games remaining against Austria, Denmark and France before their round robin finale (and arguably their toughest test) against Sweden.

Canada’s won three games: over Latvia and Slovenia in regulation and over Slovakia in a shootout.

So far, the big story of the tournament for the maple leaf is how dang good MacKenzie Weegar has been. He’s averaging 21:36 of ice time per game and he leads the tournament with six points over three games. Milan Lucic has a goal and Tyler Toffoli has three assists. Heck, Toffoli leads Canada with 16 shots on net, five more than the next-best Canadian.

It’s early, but Weegar has really built on a strong second half with the Flames and been simply excellent through the first half of group play.

Canada has games remaining against Kazakhstan, Switzerland and Norway before finishing off their round robin play against Czechia.