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We’re a week into September and while professional and college hockey in North America both are a week or two from getting started, everybody else in the hockey world is seemingly already underway.
In the realm of the Calgary Flames and their prospects, the regular seasons are getting underway in Russia while exhibition play has begun for Canadian major junior teams.
Let’s delve into a quick rundown of how things are going so far.

Russian goaltenders

The Flames only have three prospects playing in Europe in 2024-25. They’re all Russian goalies, because the Flames have a consistent brand.
Their most recent pick, 2024 third-rounder Kirill Zarubin, has returned for his third season in Russia’s major junior league, the MHL. Zarubin played in both of AKM Tula’s games on opening weekend; he started in their first game and then entered the second game in relief after the other goalie gave up two quick goals. Based on usage so far, AKM Tula will be using Zarubin as their top netminder this season.
Meanwhile, the other two goalies that the Flames hold the rights to have bounced around a little bit. Daniil Chechelev (2020 fourth-rounder) is part of HC Vityaz’s system and was their third-string goalie during KHL pre-season, but he’s been loaned to a team in the second-tier VHL pro league, Yunison-Moskva. Yunison is carrying four goalies right now and Chechelev hasn’t worked into any game action through three games – he’s dressed once as backup.
Elsewhere, 2023 sixth-rounder Yegor Yegorov has gone pro. He was previously with MHK Dynamo Moskva in the MHL. But MHK has seemingly settled on a tandem of 16-year-old Vladimir Selivanov and 18-year-old Ilya Podsukha, so they’ve loaned Yegorov to the VHL’s HC Tambov. There was an announcement on the league’s website and everything, which makes us think this isn’t a short-term move, but something designed to get Yegorov some game time. Tambov begins their season on Sunday.

Canadian major junior

The story of the Flames prospects in the CHL right now is who’s reported to junior camps and who hasn’t.
Four prospects bypassed junior camps and went right to Calgary to prepare for training camp: Hunter Brzustewicz, Samuel Honzek, Jaden Lipinski and Matvei Gridin. We’ve written about Gridin a bunch this summer; he’s widely expected to be moved to the Shawinigan Cataractes on or around Sept. 20 after being selected in the CHL Import Draft by Val-d’Or. But for now, he has no junior team to report to. Meanwhile, the other three are 20-year-olds who will be pushing to go pro this season, so it likely didn’t make much sense to have them report to junior camps as potential overagers.
Elsewhere, all of their other junior prospects – Andrew Basha, Luke Misa, Jacob Battaglia, Hunter Laing, Axel Hurtig, Eric Jamieson, Zayne Parekh, Hunter Mews and Etienne Morin – appeared in their junior clubs’ respective training camps. Mews dressed for Ottawa’s pre-season game on Friday. Many of these players are already migrating to Calgary for prospect camp next week. Hurtig is already in town – he plays for the Hitmen – but he didn’t dress for Friday’s pre-season opener against Red Deer, as the Hitmen opted to dress a younger roster as they often do for the pre-season. (Check out Nick Lacoste’s breakdown of Battaglia’s OHL camp if you haven’t already!)
The Flames will be taking part in the 2024 Young Stars Classic tournament in Penticton next weekend, with their roster likely being announced early next week.