The Calgary Flames’ top prospect will be getting a chance to challenge himself in a pretty unique environment this spring, per a report on social media from TSN’s Darren Dreger. According to Dreger, defensive prospect Zayne Parekh will be joining Team Canada for some pre-tournament games leading up to the IIHF World Championship.

Canada is slated to play a pair of pre-tournament games: on May 4 in Vienna against Austria and on May 6 in Budapest against Hungary. The tournament itself is being hosted in Stockholm, Sweden and Herring, Denmark from May 9-25.

As explained during Saturday’s exit meetings, Parekh isn’t joining the Wranglers for the remainder of their season so that he can actually have a full summer of training and recuperation after two full years of frenzied hockey. Now, if you’re asking yourself “Hey, how is this any different from joining the Wranglers?” Well, this is two games, and it’s two games in a situation where Parekh is joining a group of guys that haven’t played together very much – if at all – and potentially playing two national teams that are, if we’re being blunt here, probably not as good as the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds or Ontario Reign.

So if the idea is to give Parekh a bit of a development opportunity while maintaining the philosophy of getting him so downtime and some training time, giving him a chance to suit up for the IIHF World Championship pre-tournament games makes a lot of sense.

The ninth overall pick by the Flames in the 2024 NHL Draft, Parekh is coming off a spectacular season with the Ontario Hockey League’s Saginaw Spirit, where he scored 33 goals and 107 points. He’s doing the types of things offensively that few have ever done in the OHL, and so the Flames are seemingly trying to find challenging situations for him to help him build towards training camp in the fall without necessarily throwing him right into the deep end.