Any ideas around the backup goalie position? I assume it's Ivan Prosvetov's job to lose. Is Devin Cooley NHL-ready? Going to be a lot on Dustin Wolf's shoulders once the season starts. How much runway do you see Prosvetov getting?
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FlamesNation Mailbag: Looking ahead to training camp
Photo credit: Mike Gould
The Calgary Flames have concluded their annual prospects training camp, defeating the Edmonton Oilers in both sides of a home-and-home set featuring each club’s youngest players.
Now, we turn our attention to the main portion of training camp, which kicks off later this week. But first up, we turn to the mailbag!
We’re leaning towards Ivan Prosvetov as backup, primarily because he has more NHL experience than Devin Cooley and has NHL experience as a backup netminder. But it’s probably a situation that the Flames are monitoring all season with both Prosvetov and Cooley only under contract for the upcoming season.
How many forwards are locked into the opening night roster? Is their room for a young guy to earn a spot on the team if they have a good camp? Or do we think that would most likely require an injury
On paper, I have 11 forwards locked into opening night roster spots: Jonathan Huberdeau, Nazem Kadri, Matt Coronato, Connor Zary, Morgan Frost, Martin Pospisil, Joel Farabee, Mikael Backlund, Blake Coleman, Yegor Sharangovich and Ryan Lomberg.
Behind them, there’s Justin Kirkland and Adam Klapka, both on one-ways, who have strong chances and probably would need to play their way off the team. So there might be just one roster spot left in the forward ranks to battle over, assuming they go with seven defenders and 14 forwards on the opening roster.
I could see players like Dryden Hunt, Sam Honzek, Sam Morton and Rory Kerins getting some consideration for that spot. When I look at the potential 13th and 14th forwards, the Flames have seemed to have a preference to players with a bit of positional versatility – that can play up and down the lineup, or play multiple positions – and so that may favour players like Hunt and Kerins.
How can a team with one of the league’s worst 5-on-5 shooting percentages last year improve offensively without elite talent? And how will this affect our future, especially if they won't commit to fully tanking for a potential super star caliber talent
The Flames probably look at the young pieces they have in their system, and the on-ice system they’ve instilled over the past season or so, and conclude that they have created a situation where they were a sneeze away from making the playoffs on a roster that arguably was pretty low on execution and elite skill. If you maintain that structure and then add in a few younger players with a bit more skill to them, suddenly you start executing on those chances that didn’t go in a year ago. That’s probably their mindset: they’ve framed out the edges of the puzzle, but now they need to start filling in the gaps to complete the picture.
DFO published a re-draft of the last few years. For 2024 it had Zeev Buium at #2 and Parekh at #7. I think of ZB as the road not taken and given lots of buzz about his progress, I wonder if maybe they should’ve. How do you see it? (For the record, I like Parekh.)
Zeev Buium was so much fun to watch in his draft year. For those unfamiliar, Buium was drafted 12th overall by Minnesota while the Flames took Zayne Parekh at ninth overall. Buium had a superb draft year in the NCAA, while Parekh impressed in the OHL. From scouts I chatted with and reports I read, the perception that I got was that Buium was a bit more physically mature and had a better “overall” 200-foot game, while Parekh was seen as having a higher offensive ceiling.
Both are really impressive young defenders, and which player you prefer now (or preferred at last year’s draft) probably depended on what type of player you liked better.
Got a question for a future mailbag? Contact Ryan on Twitter/BlueSky at @RyanNPike or e-mail him at Ryan.Pike [at] BetterCollective.com! (Make sure you put Mailbag in the subject line!)
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