If we’re being honest with each other, folks, every edition of the Barn Burner podcast is pretty good. Ryan Pinder, Dean “Boomer” Molberg and Rhett Warrener have worked together for awhile, and there have been entire episodes where they barely discuss hockey and the shows are still strong.

But on Thursday’s edition of the program, the gents had a really interesting discussion of Calgary Flames’ 2023 first-round selection Samuel Honzek.

Now, we think it goes without saying that the 2023-24 season didn’t go how Honzek hoped it would. He had a pretty good training camp, but suffered an abdominal injury in his final pre-season game on Oct. 4 and then didn’t play in a WHL game until Dec. 1. He played five games, went to the World Juniors, and then suffered a facial injury upon his return in January and wore a full shield for several weeks after that.

Honzek had a strong draft season in 2022-23, but it was marred by a skate cut in his calf at the World Juniors that cost him several weeks of that season. When he was selected, the refrain from some in the WHL scouting community was “Hey, imagine how good he could be over a full season!” Heck, Flames general manager Craig Conroy mused about Honzek’s potential as a centre and Vancouver Giants head coach Manny Viveiros openly pondered using Honzek up the middle. Honzek’s injury threw the brakes on that possibility.

So yes, losing several weeks of your draft year and two months of your Draft+1 season is less than ideal. But can injuries be overcome? Certainly. Look no further than Connor Zary, whose final year in the WHL (2020-21) was weird, marred by the COVID-19 pandemic creating an odd schedule and Zary missing time due to an injury. Heck, Zary fractured his ankle during his first pro training camp the following year and didn’t really get his game going until mid-season.

The key to prospect success is growth and progression. Growth in terms of a player developing tools that can help them succeed at the pro level. Progression in terms of carving out a larger role wherever they’re playing and developing a niche that they can draw upon for further success. When a player has some injury issues that slows their progress, that can often be overcome if it happens at the junior or minor pro level, before waivers become a consideration. (An argument can be made that the problems that stalled Juuso Valimaki’s progression within the Flames organization weren’t just injuries, but the timing of them: he lost over a season and a half of his three year entry-level contract, which drastically complicated his developmental situation.)

The Flames have six recent first-round picks in camp right now. Here’s a quick gander at how they’ve progressed since their Draft-minus-1 seasons.

Parekh was the Flames’ first-round pick, ninth overall, in 2024.

As a 16-year-old, Parekh posted pretty solid offensive numbers – 21 goals is pretty impressive, too. As a 17-year-old, he absolutely crushed it offensively. While it should be expected that he’ll miss some time in December due to Canada’s World Junior camp, and a likely role on the national junior team, it’s not unreasonable to expect Parekh to hit three digits in terms of points and to potentially exceed 40 goals.

Gridin was the Flames’ first-round pick, 28th overall, in 2024.

Barring anything unforeseen, Gridin will be headed to the QMJHL in the next few weeks to suit up with Shawinigan. To maintain NHLe progression, he would need to post around 83 points over a 60 game QMJHL season – the USHL and the QMJHL both have pretty similiar NHLe coefficients, as offensive production across the leagues is fairly similar. We’ll see how quickly Gridin can adjust to a new league, but history suggests he figures things out fairly quickly.

Honzek was the Flames’ first-round pick, 16th overall, in 2023.

As we discussed, Honzek had a down year in 2023-24, as he never really seemed to get his mojo going after his late start and subsequent injury after the World Juniors. It’ll be interesting to see how he adjusts to playing in the AHL. Matt Coronato adjusted really well in 2023-24, as did Jakob Pelletier in 2021-22, but Zary dealt with injuries in 2021-22 and took awhile to get traction.

Coronato was the Flames’ first-rounder, 13th overall, in 2021.

It seems like every couple of years, Coronato has to adjust to a new environment – he spent two seasons in the USHL, then two in the NCAA before going pro last season. He’s shown pretty steady offensive progression and while he had a bit of a dip moving into a more structured college game, he maintained his production level for two seasons… and that’s despite being converted to centre in 2022-23 out of necessity, as Harvard had some injuries and were short on centres for the first half of their season.

Zary was the Flames’ first-rounder, 24th overall, in 2020.

If you throw Zary’s injury-addled 2021-22 season out the window, it’s hard to look at his past few seasons as anything but a big success. He had a really strong 2022-23 season at the AHL level, then managed to jump into the NHL a month into the 2023-24 season and carve out a role for himself.

If you want to be optimistic about Honzek’s future, you’re hoping he adjusts as well as Zary has.

Pelletier was the Flames’ first-rounder, 26th overall, in 2019.

Pelletier has never been an imposing physical presence, but he’s consistently adapted and been able to maintain a high level of offensive production due to his smarts and two-way acumen. He was nowhere close to looking like himself in 2023-24 due to his injuries, but even then he still posted pretty respectable AHL numbers. (He’s built enough of a reputation as a high performer that “pretty respectable” is seen as a step backward.)