A week full of milestones for Calgary Flames prospect Jonathan Castagna will cap off with a pretty big one on Thursday night: his National Hockey League debut.

Last Friday night, Castagna made his professional hockey debut, playing for the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers and centring the fourth line between wingers Will Dineen and Luke Philp. He also worked on the penalty kill for Brett Sutter’s Wranglers.

5:13 into the first period of Friday’s game, Castagna hit another milestone, scoring his first professional goal, chasing down his own rebound and depositing it into the Abbotsford net behind netminder Nikita Tolopilo.

Castagna added an empty-netter later on Friday night, and even tried for a second empty-netter to complete a potential debut hat trick… but his shot attempt hit another player and didn’t get close to Abbotsford’s net.

The Wranglers went on to win Friday’s game by a 4-2 score, which they repeated again on Saturday to sweep the set against the Baby Canucks. The penalty kill, featuring Castagna, went 5-for-5 on the weekend.

On Wednesday, after the Flames assigned Connor Zary and Brayden Pachal to the Wranglers the day before, the big club summoned Castagna and teammate Aydar Suniev to the NHL. At Wednesday’s practice, Castagna was between Suniev and Wranglers graduate Adam Klapka on the fourth line.

When he hits the ice on Thursday, Castagna will become the 688th different player to play for the franchise and the 13th Flame to wear #38 in a regular season game. Those that came before him wearing #38 include Patrick Lebeau (1992-93, one game), Peter Ahola (1993-94, two games), Todd Hlushko (1994-95, two games), Craig Ferguson (1995-96, eight games), Jarrod Skalde (1995-96, one game), Sasha Lakovic (1996-97, 19 games), Eric Charron (1998-99, 12 games), Jeff Cowan (1999-2002, 83 games), Robert Dome (2002-03, one game), Jason Jaffray (2009-10, three games), Ben Street (2012-14, 19 games) and Byron Froese (2020-21, six games).

He’ll be the third Cornell University alumnus to suit up for the Flames, following goaltender Doug Dadswell and Hockey Hall of Famer Joe Nieuwendyk.

While Castagna probably shouldn’t be viewed as a saviour – nor should Suniev, for that matter – it’s worth emphasizing: he’s a good hockey player. Last season, in his third year in college as a 20-year-old, he was named a ECAC First Team All-Star, alongside fellow Flames prospect Ethan Wyttenbach, and ECAC Defensive Forward of the Year. He was voted the Flames’ 14th-best prospect during DFO Calgary’s summer balloting, and that’s as much a commentary of the stacked nature of the Flames’ system as it as of how good Castagna is.

Castagna impressed against Abbotsford last weekend, doing a lot of things quite well in a pair of wins. We’re fascinated to see how quickly he can adjust to the NHL.

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