Good news, everybody! It’s October now, which means hockey is back!

Well, for a lot of the Calgary Flames’ prospects, anyway. Here’s a quick snapshot of which players are active (or about to be) across the hockey-playing globe.

The QMJHL regular season begins on Friday and, as part of that, Jakob Pelletier makes his debut as Val-d’Or Foreurs captain. They’ll play a pair of games at home against Gatineau as part of a Q schedule that’s extremely heavy on back-to-backs in the same city to lower the need for travel.

So last week Loko’s KHL parent, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, had a COVID-19 outbreak and forfeited a game. Rather than forfeit another game, the KHL allowed them to recall players from their MHL and VHL affiliates – which caused those teams to have games postponed to later dates. So while Ilya Nikolayev didn’t get called up, Loko’s Sept. 25 and 26 games were postponed. Their next game will be on Oct. 7.

Meanwhile, Dmitry Zavgorodniy made his KHL debut on Wednesday for SKA St. Petersburg. He had three assists in a 6-4 SKA win over Novobirsk. SKA continues on the road this week in Amur and Barys before returning home on Oct. 7.

Defender Johannes Kinnvall, of HV71 of the SHL, is out with a shoulder injury suffered during the pre-season. He should be ready to return in about a week or so.

Filip Sveningsson‘s first game with his new team, MODO Hockey, is Saturday night against HC Vita Hasten (“the White Horse”). They have a light schedule early on with a game per week.

Lucas Feuk and AIK get going on Friday night when they host Eetu Tuulola‘s new club, Vastervik IK.

Juuso Valimaki makes his debut with his new club, Ilves, on Friday when they face SaiPa.

So the Slovakian situation is weird. The players league-wide headed to Bratislava for a demonstration designed to get some clarity on when fans can be admitted, because attendance is huge for the bottom line in that league – the government has approved capacity for each game of 50 fans. But Martin Pospisil‘s team, HC Kosice, couldn’t go because of a few positive COVID-19 tests. Their opening weekend game against Zloven has been postponed to a later date.

On a broader scale, a country-wide state of emergency is being enacted effective on Thursday due to a flare-up of COVID-19 and it’s unclear if that will eventually impact games. (Adam Ruzicka was skating with HC Slovan Bratislava, but thus far no deal has been agreed up for him to formally be loaned to the team.)