{"id":200326,"date":"2025-09-19T17:09:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T17:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/200326\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T17:09:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T17:09:12","slug":"youth-movement-maturing-flames-less-of-a-team-in-transition-to-start-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/200326\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth movement maturing, Flames less of a team in transition to start camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Forward Matt Coronato scored 24 goals for the Flames last season.Frank Franklin II\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Expectations inside the Calgary Flames dressing room were high as the players hit the ice at training camp Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Flames are less of a team in transition than they were a year ago. Their 96 points last season tied the highest by a team that didn\u2019t make the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Calgary (41-27-14) was in post-season contention until the second-last game of the regular season, but ultimately fell short of the playoffs for a third straight year.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs much as I said last year how proud I was and all that, yadda, yadda, this year, it\u2019s a little different,\u201d said Flames defenceman MacKenzie Weegar.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of internal expectations. We\u2019re pushing ourselves to be that one to four points better than last year, which gets us into the playoffs. Expectations are high for individuals to try to make the team, to the team expectations to make a push in playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The injection of youth general manager Craig Conroy sought a year ago was fruitful.<\/p>\n

Forwards Matt Coronato and Connor Zary, defenceman Kevin Bahl and goaltender Dustin Wolf, all under the age of 25, proved their worth to the Flames and were rewarded with multi-year contracts over the summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of people that have opportunities to make jumps and really solidify themselves in the NHL,\u201d said veteran forward Nazem Kadri.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome good contracts, I think there\u2019s a lot of opportunity there. Last year we played a lot meaningful games. It felt like playoff games for most of the year. With that experience, I think you can become better from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s somewhat less job opportunity for newcomers at training camp this year, but 19-year-old defenceman Zayne Parekh is intent on becoming an NHL player this season.<\/p>\n

Calgary\u2019s first-round pick (ninth overall) in the 2024 NHL draft didn\u2019t participate in rookie camp because of a lower-body injury, but he skated Thursday and wants to play in Sunday\u2019s split-squad, pre-season game against the Edmonton Oilers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of pressure on me,\u201d said the teenager from Markham, Ont. \u201cI think a lot of nerves too. There\u2019s a lot expected of me. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just going to try my best to see what happens. Last camp, I was kind of coming in just trying to soak everything in. This time around, I\u2019ve got to push for a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flames head coach Ryan Huska spent time with Parekh last spring at a pre-tournament world championship camp in Europe. Huska was Canada\u2019s assistant coach at worlds.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving the opportunity to spend quite a bit more time with him and work with him in Europe, I thought was a very good thing for me and I hope it\u2019s something that allows him to feel a little bit more comfortable about a situation here,\u201d Huska said.<\/p>\n

The departure of Dan Vladar and a seven-year, $52.5-million extension for Wolf, who was the runner-up for the Calder Trophy as the NHL\u2019s top rookie last season, means Calgary won\u2019t run a tandem to start the season.<\/p>\n

Devin Cooley is the front-runner for the backup job, although 26-year-old Russian netminder Ivan Prosvetov is also at camp after signing a one-year contract in the summer.<\/p>\n

Coronato, who scored 24 goals last season, returned to the top line forward line alongside Kadri and Jonathan Huberdeau in the morning\u2019s first skate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look at our lineup, Matt\u2019s our pure goal scorer, so you put your pure goal scorer with one of your main passers and your top centre to start with,\u201d Huska explained. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere were stretches last year where I liked the way they played together and there were stretches last year where we didn\u2019t, so we\u2019ll see what they can do early on this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Flames open the regular season with back-to-back road games against the Edmonton Oilers on Oct. 8 and Vancouver Canucks on Oct. 9. Their home-opener is Oct. 11 against the St. Louis Blues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Forward Matt Coronato scored 24 goals for the Flames last season.Frank Franklin II\/The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[1018,1001,1019,967,991,1020,895,26,5294,19,990,1008,1009,1004,992,989,1014,1016,1013,1007,896,1000,1030,993,994,1006,5,1002,1003,997,1021,998,1025,1026,4,1028,1023,1027,786,1024,995,1011,1012,333,1010,1022,86,1015,1017,1005,999,996,1029],"class_list":{"0":"post-200326","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary-flames","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-calgary","15":"tag-calgary-flames","16":"tag-calgaryflames","17":"tag-canada","18":"tag-canada-news","19":"tag-canada-sports","20":"tag-canada-sports-news","21":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","22":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","23":"tag-canadian-news","24":"tag-economy","25":"tag-education","26":"tag-environment","27":"tag-federal-government","28":"tag-flames","29":"tag-foreign-news","30":"tag-globe-and-mail","31":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","32":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","33":"tag-government","34":"tag-hockey","35":"tag-life-news","36":"tag-lifestyle","37":"tag-local-news","38":"tag-manitoba","39":"tag-national-news","40":"tag-new-brunswick","41":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","42":"tag-nhl","43":"tag-northwest-territories","44":"tag-nova-scotia","45":"tag-nunavut","46":"tag-ontario","47":"tag-pei","48":"tag-photos","49":"tag-political-news","50":"tag-political-opinion","51":"tag-politics","52":"tag-politics-news","53":"tag-quebec","54":"tag-sports-news","55":"tag-technology","56":"tag-travel","57":"tag-trudeau","58":"tag-us-news","59":"tag-world-news","60":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}