The Calgary Flames hit the ice for the first time officially in the 2026-27 season – well, their prospects did at least – on Saturday afternoon at the palatial Scotiabank Saddledome.

23 players participated in the main practice group as the Flames’ prospects began preparations for Monday night’s clash with their Edmonton Oilers counterparts in the NextGen Showcase.

Here’s what we saw at the ‘Dome.

For the first time this particular combination of players was hitting the ice together, this was a really pacey practice. Helmed by Calgary Wranglers head coach Brett Sutter, his AHL assistant coaches, and several members of the Flames’ development staff, the practice began with a few simple “skating with a puck” drills, then turned those into one-on-one battle drills, then turned those into multi-man battle drills, then turned those into transition drills, then turned those into battling and puck transition drills.

If there’s anything we can expect the Flames to emphasize this season based on Saturday’s very small sample size, it’s speed and pace. And we’ll give everyone credit: the players on the ice seemed up to the task on the first day.

To our untrained eyes, the players that seemed to lead the way were, well, the older guys. The Flames have five players in this camp who have played NHL games – Matvei Gridin (37), Tyson Gross (6), Aydar Suniev (7), Abram Wiebe (4) and Arsenii Sergeev (1) – and they were all quite prominent on Saturday in terms of leading drills (and looking strong in those drills).

The Flames skated with three goaltenders, seven defencemen and 13 forwards on Saturday. While forwards and defenders tended to rotate through various combinations during the session, here’s roughly how they looked most frequently on Saturday.

Matvei Gridin – Tyson Gross – Aydar Suniev
Simon Katolicky – Riley Boychuk – Joe Iginla
Chase Harrington – Jonathan Castagna – Andrew Basha
Ryder Boulton – Will Dineen – Carter Wilkie (with Quinn Olson rotating in)

Axel Hurtig – Abram Wiebe
Kyle Walker – Kent Anderson
Mace’o Phillips – Bode Laylin
Jakob Leander rotating on various pairs

Arsenii Sergeev, Kirill Zarubin and Semyon Konopsky rotated in net.

Owen Say is said to be good to go after surgery, though, and he joined a goalie session after the main group. (The plan for camp is to have three goalies in the practice groups so each guy gets a decent amount of shots, with the fourth netminder joining them for a focused session afterwards.) Per the club, forward Landon Amrhein, named on the camp roster, won’t be participating in camp due to injury.

The Flames are back on the practice ice on Sunday as they continue to prep for Monday’s game against the young Oilers.