Save for college standouts who make their debuts at the very end of the season, very few players play in actual NHL games before ever suiting up for any pre-season action.

Rory Kerins is an extremely rare exception to that rule. Now entering his fourth full pro season in the Calgary Flames organization, and his sixth overall, Kerins is finally getting the chance to show what he can do in gameplay situations during training camp.

Think about that. The Flames drafted Kerins in the sixth round all the way back in 2020. He lost almost all of his first post-draft season due to the OHL’s COVID-19 shutdown, but since then, he’s gone through four NHL training camps without being tapped even once to take part in exhibition play. Sunday’s split-squad game against the Edmonton Oilers marked Kerins’ pre-season NHL debut.

Kerins has been assigned to three different leagues out of Flames training camps in the past. In 2021, he was sent back to the OHL’s Soo Greyhounds, with whom he scored 118 points in 67 games that season. The next year, he was demoted to the Rapid City Rush of the ECHL, which graduates vanishingly few players to the NHL. And in each of the last two seasons, Kerins has spent almost all of his time with the AHL’s Calgary Wranglers, earning his first cup of coffee with the Flames midway through the 2024-25 season.

Nothing about Kerins’ career trajectory has been ‘by the book.’ For starters, very few sixth-round picks are still in their original NHL organizations five years out from when they were drafted. Only a handful of players make it from the ECHL to the NHL each decade, and most of them are goaltenders. And it’s highly unusual for players who get overlooked for pre-season duty year after year to still manage to turn into legit prospects.

Well, here we are. Kerins, who turned 23 in April and is now eligible for waivers, now has three pre-season games under his belt. He’s not big (5-11, 190) but he isn’t that small, either, and both his speed and agility look to have improved significantly. And after recording an assist in the split-squad game against the Oilers, Kerins was named the first star of Tuesday’s game against Seattle after setting up Yegor Sharangovich’s goal in the first period and scoring the game-winner in the second.

The Flames have many decisions to make as it pertains to the bottom end of their forward group, with Kerins battling the likes of Justin Kirkland, Dryden Hunt, Sam Morton, and Sam Honzek for exposure. Ryan Lomberg and Adam Klapka have all but locked down full-fledged regular status but could still be bumped to the extra forward spot if somebody else necessitated it with their play.

It seemed like quite the vote of confidence when Flames head coach Ryan Huska tapped Kerins to centre the top line in Wednesday’s road tilt against the Vancouver Canucks. Unsurprisingly, the Flames sent an extremely light roster to Rogers Arena, with Joel Farabee, Connor Zary, and Joel Hanley being the only true veterans on the roster, but Kerins still made his presence felt in a largely inevitable 3-1 loss. He was instrumental in setting up the play that led to the lone Calgary marker, scored by Zary on a power play in the second period.

Indeed, Huska has had no shortage of praise for Kerins throughout the early stages of training camp, and that was reflected during Thursday’s camp sessions when Kerins participated with the main group and took reps on the No. 2 power-play unit.

“What’s stood out for me so far with [Kerins], he’s been very responsible structure wise,” Huska said after Tuesday’s win at the Saddledome (via Flames TV). “We’ve been really happy with the way he’s played so far.”

Kerins was named an AHL All-Star last year and finished as the Wranglers’ leading scorer, collecting 33 goals and 61 points in 63 games. The Caledon, Ontario product has taken steps forward in each successive season of his pro career to date, and he truly looks to be the clubhouse favourite to lock down an NHL job out of camp. Wouldn’t it be something if he could follow the same ECHL-NHL trajectory as someone like Carter Verhaeghe, who went from the Missouri Mavericks in 2016-17 to his first of three Stanley Cup championships in 2019-20? The Flames are overdue for a positive development like that.

Keep an eye on Kerins as training camp continues. He’s been a factor in every pre-season game thus far, and it seems like the Flames want to make up for the failings of years’ past by giving him as many looks as possible this time around. If all goes well, the Flames might have a legit difference-maker on their hands.

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