The Calgary Flames played their first pre-season game of 2026-27 on Sunday evening. They will play their final pre-season game on Saturday evening, and have their roster essentially locked in for the regular season by this time next week.

Camp goes by fast, folks. As we gird ourselves for a hectic week of hockey and hockey-related decision-making, onto the mailbag!

If we’re being completely honest with each other here, I don’t think the slow start of Don Maloney’s November interviews influenced negotiations in any significant way. I can understand some fan skepticism at the claims at the time of the announcement of the new contracts for Craig Conroy and his assistant GMs, but my understanding is that the big-wigs at the ‘Dome were very much on board with Conroy’s youth movement from when he was hired on. Even if the new contracts weren’t necessarily completely locked up when the season began, they did feel like a formality considering the progress Conroy was making with building up the prospect base, integrating youngsters, and getting value in trades.

Now, if you want to ponder if the reaction to Maloney’s interviews made the brass think fans would stomach a more aggressive youth movement… yeah, I think that’s the case. I don’t think a couple poorly-received interviews would contribute to a significant change in direction. But I do think it influenced the decision to lean into a bit more

It’s early, and we just have a prospects game with Edmonton and a pre-season game with Seattle to judge, but so far I’ve liked Sam Honzek, Aydar Suniev, Tyson Gross, Jonathan Castagna, Yan Kuznetsov and Zayne Parekh. It’s tough to judge goaltenders based on how uneven the defensive systems can be in these types of settings.

If I were making a wager, I’m thinking by the end of the season, Zayne Parekh and Simon Nemec will have nearly identical power play ice time totals. I suspect we’ll see them on separate units to start, but at some point I think they’ll be put on a super-unit to see how that looks.

This is an evaluation and experimentation season, so I imagine the coaching staff will try all sorts of stuff with their group this season, and that involves seeing what both Parekh and Nemec can do in favourable offensive situations.