The Calgary Flames hosted the Edmonton Oilers on Monday evening in a clash of each club’s prospects training camp rosters, dubbed the NextGen Showcase.

Effort was on display for the home side, but execution wasn’t quite there, as the Flames’ prospects dropped a 6-1 contest to the Oilers’ prospects at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

Matvei Gridin – Tyson Gross – Aydar Suniev
Chase Harrington – Jonathan Castagna – Andrew Basha
Simon Katolicky – Riley Boychuk – Joe Iginla
Ryder Boulton – Will Dineen – Carter Wilkie
Brett Olson

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

Arsenii Sergeev
Kirill Zarubin

The first period was pretty disjointed, in the sense that the teams basically alternated taking penalties for the first chunk of it.

The Oilers opened the scoring a few minutes into the opening period on a power play. With Andrew Basha in the penalty box, Quinn Hutson got a bit of time and space with the puck low in the zone to Arsenii Sergeev’s right. He opted to shoot, picking the corner over Sergeev’s near shoulder to make it 1-0 Oilers.

With just under five minutes to go in the period, Mace’o Phillips fought Edmonton’s Weston Cameron. It was one-sided, with Phillips earning a quick knockdown victory.

With just over a minute left in the frame, the Oilers added to their lead. Zach Bookman threw an ankle-high wobbler towards the Flames net and it got past Sergeev to give Edmonton a 2-0 lead. (Based on Sergeev’s body language, he didn’t like giving up that goal.)

The Flames had a bit more jump in the second period and were able to create a bit more offensively with their speed on the rush and on the forecheck.

That said, neither team managed to score in the second. Kirill Zarubin entered the game with 8:33 left in the second period, as part of a planned goalie split.

The Oilers pulled away in the third period.

Caden Harvey chipped a loose rebound over top of Zarubin early in the period to go up 3-0. With Abram Wiebe in the penalty box, Isaac Howard scored on a back-door redirect (of a nice pass) to go up 4-0.

Aydar Suniev spoiled the Oilers’ shutout bid a bit later, off a really nice rush play where he kept control of a bouncing puck through traffic and then roofed the puck over top of Samuel Jonsson.

But that was all the Flames would get, as Rhett Pitlick added an empty-netter to make it 5-1. Kyle Heger scored late to make it a 6-1 final.

As a general note, the Flames seemed to start the game playing as a series of talented individuals but they weren’t connecting well. As the game went along, they seemed to do a better job of using their teammates to create chances and maintain possession, and consequently they were better able to generate shots and chances.

Special teams are pretty systems-based, and generally the Flames weren’t all that good on either side of special teams. Hutson’s goal on the Edmonton power play was much more of a “goal-scorer finds an open spot to shoot” goal than a systems breakdown goal, though. (Though, you could argue that you shouldn’t give a guy who can shoot like that a clear shooting lane.)

There were a few decent flashes from the Flames here and there, but they weren’t quite able to stitch decent shifts together into a coherent full game.

The Flames’ prospects are slated to skate on Tuesday, and then focus starts to transition towards main camp at the end of the week. The Flames play their first pre-season game on Sunday evening when they host the Seattle Kraken.

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