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Flames set opening roster: Aydar Suniev assigned to Wranglers, Jonathan Huberdeau placed on injury reserve

Photo credit: Angela Burger/Calgary Wranglers

By Ryan Pike

Sep 28, 2026, 17:03 EDT

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The Calgary Flames have formally locked in their season-opening roster.

To get down to a 23-man active roster, they’ve made a pair of moves. Forward Aydar Suniev, who’s waiver exempt, was assigned to the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers. Forward Jonathan Huberdeau, still working his way back from hip surgery back in March, has been placed on the injury reserve list.

Suniev, 21, is a product of Kazan, Russia who came to North America in 2019-20 to pursue his hockey dreams. He bounced around a bit and had to deal with various immigration headaches – figuring out how to play in prep school that featured games in Canada and the United States in the aftermath of the pandemic was likely a gigantic headache – before landing with the BCHL’s Penticton Vees. He was selected by the Flames in the third round of the 2023 NHL Draft, then headed to the University of Massachusetts for two seasons before signing his entry-level deals.

At the end of Suniev’s first pro season, 2025-26, Wranglers head coach Brett Sutter remarked to Postmedia’s Danny Austin that Suniev might have been the team’s most improved player. Having seen a lot of the Wranglers last season, I wouldn’t disagree at all. Suniev went from someone that seemed a bit out of place in pro hockey but had a good shot, to someone who had a good shot and had a much better idea of what he needed to do to use that shot effectively.

We would be surprised if Suniev isn’t one of the first players called up from the AHL if/when the Flames require a top nine forward.

Huberdeau, 33, joined the Flames via the Matthew Tkachuk trade in the 2022 off-season. Since joining the Flames he hasn’t seen the same offensive success he had in Florida, but he’s worked really hard to rework his game to be an effective two-way player. He played with a deteriorating hip injury over last season – and probably before that to a lesser extent – before going through surgery in March.

Flames general manager Craig Conroy has remarked in recent interviews that the prognosis for Huberdeau’s return was seven-to-nine months after surgery… and so October, if you’re doing the math, was on the optimistic side of that range. In other words: Huberdeau is entering the general window of when he could return, but we’ll likely get better indications from the Flames as Huberdeau ramps up his rehab and starts skating with the team. We’re not quite there yet, though.

Here’s the opening roster:

Goaltenders Devin Cooley (#1) and Dustin Wolf (#32)
Defencemen Kevin Bahl (#7), Zayne Parekh (#19), Zach Whitecloud (#28), Yan Kuznetsov (#37), Joel Hanley (#44) Jake Middleton (#55), Simon Nemec (#71) and Brayden Pachal (#94)
Forwards Mikael Backlund (#11), Morgan Frost (#16), Yegor Sharangovich (#17), Ryan Strome (#22), Matt Coronato (#27), Sam Honzek (#29), Adam Klapka (#43), Connor Zary (#47), Maxim Tsyplakov (#72), Martin Pospisil (#76), Brennan Othmann (#78), Joel Farabee (#86) and Matvei Gridin (#92)
Injury reserve list: Jonathan Huberdeau (#10)

The Flames’ opening roster, plus retained salary on Blake Coleman and Nazem Kadri, carries $90.1 million in salary cap commitments, and $13.9 million in space under the $104 million cap ceiling. (Because the Flames have so much cap space, Huberdeau is on the standard injury reserve, not the long-term injury reserve.)

We’ll have more details on the opening roster in the coming days.

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