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FlamesNation Mailbag: Winding down April with reader questions
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Photo credit: Mike Gould
Ryan Pike
Apr 28, 2025, 14:00 EDTUpdated: Apr 27, 2025, 19:12 EDT
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Gang, we’re closing out the month of April and moving into May later this week. (Where has time gone?!) And we’re winding down April with oodles of questions from our great readers in our Monday mailbag.
Without further ado, let’s dive in!
On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m a 7.5 on Radz history.
For those who aren’t familiar, in the early 1990s for some reason roller blading and roller hockey became very popular for a small amount of time. So a league was formed, spear-headed by a man named Dennis Murphy, who had been behind the formations of the American Basketball Association and the World Hockey Association. The idea was that during the summer months, when hockey wasn’t going on, hockey fans would enjoy watching hockey played on roller blades.
After launching in 1993 the league peaked with 24 teams in 1994, but the popularity of the sport and league waned pretty quickly – ironically, the same things that happened to the ABA and WHA – and the league folded in 1998. (It was briefly revived a couple years later, but only lasted one more season.) The Radz only played two seasons before folding after the 1994 campaign.
At some point, I might do a bit more of a deep-dive on the Radz.
I’ll defer to James Tubb, the Tigers beat reporter for the Medicine Hat News. He responded to a question on Twitter/X from a Tigers fan regarding Andrew Basha’s status back on Apr. 18:
“Don’t have a ton of clarity on when an Andrew Basha return would come. Last report from the Tigers was a late playoff return. Could be this round or the finals if they get there. Hoping to find out more as the next round nears.“
I would suspect that for the Flames and the Tigers, Basha’s long-term health is the priority and they’re not going to take any chances with him. Basha could go pro with the Flames organization in the fall – I would be surprised if he doesn’t get a long look with the Wranglers – and so I suspect they’re going to err on the side of caution. I, personally, would be surprised if he plays during this post-season but I’ve been wrong before. (And will definitely be wrong again in the future.)
I’ll say this for the Wranglers: they’ve done a really nice job finding a balance between veterans and rookies on their roster. And by that I mean, they’ve found the right balance between older and younger players, and had the right mentors around. I don’t think we’ll see too much turnover with the AHL-level veterans next season, but it’s probably too soon to be sure – you never know what opportunities could become available to some of their vets.
On the coaching front, I think the Flames like their mix of coaches right now so I don’t anticipate much in the way of changes.
I’m operating under the assumption that Adam Klapka is graduating to the NHL next season, so we’ll ignore him.
I’ll single out a few individuals I really liked on the Wranglers this season:
  • Sam Morton had a really effective, consistent season as a middle-six centre and was one of their better players in the last third of the season.
  • After a pretty blah first pro season in 2023-24, Lucas Ciona has really carved out a nice niche for himself as a physical checking winger, and he scored some important goals, too.
  • On the back end, Yan Kuznetsov and Hunter Brzustewicz were a really consistent defensive pairing all season, and Kuznetsov should be praised for how his play allowed Brzustewicz to adjust to the AHL. Ilya Solovyov has also been really reliable for them on the back end.
I think Craig Conroy will look to upgrade the roster where he can, but a lot of the progression for the team will probably come from youngsters entering the lineup and growing into key players more than it would be Conroy making big moves to add pieces. They’re not going to make trades just to make trades.
I think Yegor Sharangovich getting injured in camp derailed his momentum and confidence, and he didn’t really get his mojo back until the end of the season.
Etienne Morin will almost definitely be a Wrangler next season.
I’d say Lucas Ciona does a nice job blending the grittiness and physical play with offence, though I’m not sure he has the offensive upside at the NHL level that Adam Klapka does.
It could be as simple as Ryan Huska going right from playing into coaching, and getting into coaching young people in junior right away. He knows the hockey side quite well, but I think he grasps the people side of things well, too, especially in terms of dealing with young people and understanding what they need to know to buy into what’s happening.
I don’t know if he’ll necessarily have a breakout season in the NHL next year, but Hunter Brzustewicz had a really good training camp in 2024-25 and he’s grown his game quite a bit in the AHL. I’m really curious to see how he stacks up to the more experienced NHLers in the fall.
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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