Folks, in life you often cannot control when you’ll get the opportunities that you crave. All you can do is try to be ready to take advantage of that opportunity.

With that in mind, let’s talk about Calgary Flames defenceman Yan Kuznetsov, quietly one of the best breakout stories in the National Hockey League in 2025-26 and somebody that went from possibly being organizational depth to being one of the club’s most relied-upon players.

A second-round pick in 2020, Kuznetsov bounced around the NCAA, QMJHL and AHL during his two post-draft seasons before landing with the Calgary Wranglers as a full-time pro in 2022-23.

In three seasons with the Wranglers prior to 2025-26, Kuznetsov had established himself as a really reliable, dependable 200-foot defender. In terms of shutdown lefties, he was probably behind Ilya Solovyov on the depth chart, but not by much – Kuznetsov had shown a bit more offensive upside. The good thing about Kuznetsov is that he was a low-event player in the way that coaches love: you could throw him on the ice with whoever as a defensive partner and very little would happen in all three zones. The bad thing was it was arguably tough to get excited about his game because he was so quiet and low-event.

In 2024-25, Kuznetsov spent most of the season attached at the hip to rookie Hunter Brzustewicz, and the duo impressed. Brzustewicz figured out the AHL pace and tempo pretty quickly, while Kuznetsov had his best offensive season as a pro with 21 points – modest, sure, but pretty good for a shutdown AHL defender.

The thought was maybe he would keep his level of play high, make a push for a call-up and get some NHL games in.

The Flames were kind of a hot mess in October and Kuznetsov may have benefited from that chaos.

In October, he was with the Wranglers and the coaching staff used him as a stabilizer, bouncing from pairing to pairing as they tried to figure out optimal combinations. He performed well enough that when the Flames were looking to change things up in early November, he was called up.

After a couple games on the third pairing, the Flames staff got the idea to put Kuznetsov, the great stabilizer, with MacKenzie Weegar, a high-skill veteran defender who at that point desperately needed a stabilizer after a rough start to the season. It largely worked, as Weegar settled down in response to Kuznetsov’s staunch defensive play and predictability. Kuznetsov also jumped onto the Flames’ penalty kill immediately and, perhaps due to his familiarity with assistant coach Trent Cull through their time with the Wranglers, but the PK really clicked once he arrived and was one of the best in the league for the next several months.

After Weegar was traded Kuznetsov churned through different defensive partners, but he found some chemistry late in the season with both Zach Whitecloud and Zayne Parekh, so perhaps we’ll see more of that.

Before this season, Kuznetsov had one NHL game and zero NHL points to his credit. After this season, he’s up to 58 NHL games and 12 NHL points. League-wide, only two rookie defencemen averaged 20 minutes or more per game this season: one is Matthew Schaefer, the other is Kuznetsov.

Well, Kuznetsov has a clear role and a clear identity to his game. He’s probably destined to a left side shutdown defender, playing either on the Flames’ second or third pairing – behind Kevin Bahl and maybe behind Olli Maatta, depending where he slots in. He’ll be a key penalty killer, too. All-in-all, his outlook within the Flames’ system seems pretty bright.

He’ll be entering the final year of his current contract in 2026-27, too, and he’ll likely become a restricted free agent following the season. We have a feeling that his camp will be working on some sort of an extension with the Flames before too long, though, so we wouldn’t expect him to reach the point where he actually becomes an RFA.

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