Maybe Joel Farabee will start the season on a line with Nazem Kadri and Yegor Sharangovich.
Maybe he won’t.
The Calgary Flames are trying out a few new looks in the final days of training camp and this new top-line trio understandably is drawing some eyeballs.
What Farabee knows, though, is that whether he starts the season with Kadri or not, he’s likely to be playing with a lot of different linemates this year.
He has been told as much.
“The coaches have talked to me about how I’m probably going to play up and down the lineup pretty much the whole year,” Farabee explained. “I think, for me, this is the first time in my career where I’ve had a coach come up to me and tell me ‘This is where I see you fitting into this lineup and this is how I kind of see you playing this year.’
“Mindset-wise, that’s great for me, just kinda knowing that even if I go down to the third or fourth line, it’s maybe not a demotion, it’s what the team needs from me that night.”
Since the Flames went down to one practice group on Tuesday, there has been a lot of chatter about how their lines have looked.
The move to put Farabee with Kadri and Sharangovich while placing Morgan Frost in the middle of Jonathan Huberdeau and Matt Coronato has been a conversation starter in the Calgary hockey world.
That’s part of the fun of this time of year, to be sure, but it’s probably best to pump the brakes and avoid drawing too many conclusions.
Farabee was used up and down the lineup last season after being acquired in a mid-season trade with the Philadelphia Flyers. He never quite found his feet with the Flames and managed only three goals and three assists in 31 games.
This year, though, his ability to play anywhere from the first to the fourth line is part of the plan. If he’s moved around on the roster, it’s by design.
“As long as, I think, our coaching staff does a good job of getting them to understand how they bring value to our team, it’s not an issue,” Flames head coach Ryan Huska said. “If they don’t know where they stand and see themselves moving around, it’s hard on the player.
“Our communication with a player in that situation has to be strong. When you have that, there’s no problem for the player, so that’s a challenge we have as a group.”
So far in training camp, Farabee has looked like a rejuvenated player. Heading into Wednesday’s pre-season game at the Saddledome against the Vancouver Canucks, he had a goal and an assist in three games, had picked up a fighting major and had played power-play minutes in some of the younger lineups the Flames sent out early in camp.
It has been encouraging and has earned him a shot on what ostensibly is the Flames’ top line.
“He’s getting an opportunity to play up in the lineup to play against NHL-calibre teams with NHL-calibre players,” Huska said. “He’s done a really good job so far, but I’ll come back to saying it’s a lot of communication between players and coaches.”
Farabee won’t be on the Flames’ top line all season. That’s OK with him, though. He understands his role with the team this year. A little communication goes a long way.
“I’ve liked my camp and I think I’ve proven I can play wherever in the lineup,” Farabee said. “I think just the communication between the coaches and the players here is awesome.
“When you have that, it’s a lot of peace of mind and a lot less thinking and more just going out there and playing.”