{"id":408717,"date":"2026-01-15T08:52:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T08:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/408717\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T08:52:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T08:52:33","slug":"when-i-step-on-the-ice-im-a-different-person-flames-forward-martin-pospisil-nearing-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/408717\/","title":{"rendered":"‘When I step on the ice, I\u2019m a different person’: Flames forward Martin Pospisil nearing return"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martin Pospisil isn\u2019t going to change his game.<\/p>\n

He gets asked about that a lot. The Calgary Flames<\/a> winger has had several concussions during his career and has missed the first three-and-a-half months of the 2025-26 campaign with an upper-body injury suffered during the pre-season.<\/p>\n

After skating on his own for four weeks, the 26-year-old was assigned to the AHL\u2019s Calgary Wranglers for a conditioning stint<\/a> and participated in his first two practices since early October on Tuesday and Wednesday. He should get into a game or two for the Wranglers this weekend when they host the Bakersfield Condors and a return to the NHL should follow shortly afterwards.<\/p>\n

Given his history, should we be expecting a change to his game? Will we see a Pospisil who throws fewer hits and relies less on his physicality?<\/p>\n

\u201cI can have only one answer, it\u2019s hard to change my style of play,\u201d Pospisil said. \u201cWhen I step on the ice, I\u2019m a different person and that\u2019s part of my game and what makes the team better. I won\u2019t change anything. Of course I need to be careful with some things but the physicality and the speed I bring, I just want to bring it every day, every game.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has been a grind for Pospisil to get back to the point where he can skate with teammates. The last time he played was Oct. 1 against the Vancouver Canucks<\/a> and there were months of rest and recovery before he could start ramping up the work it\u2019s taken him to return to the ice with teammates.<\/p>\n

When he got hurt initially, it wasn\u2019t thought to be serious and Pospisil, who stopped short of calling the injury a concussion, didn\u2019t think he\u2019d be out long.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it happened, I skated three or four days later and the first couple of skates I was feeling normal,\u201d said Pospisil, who will represent Slovakia at the Olympics in February if he stays healthy. \u201cThen, all of a sudden a couple days later I started feeling way worse. If somebody had told me it was going to be this long, I probably wouldn\u2019t have believed it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy with this kind of injury, especially mentally, to be positive. Sometimes you don\u2019t feel like part of a team. My girlfriend, she helped me a lot to stay positive and I went day by day and I\u2019m happy I can skate and I can play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

Getting Pospisil back in the lineup would provide a badly needed boost for a Flames team that is desperately fighting to keep their longshot playoff hopes alive. His speed and physicality have been missed.<\/p>\n

Since he broke into the NHL full-time in November of 2023, the Flames have gone 22-30-4 in games where Pospisil had been out of the lineup while posting a 74-52-18 record when he played. His presence alone doesn\u2019t guarantee that the Flames will turn things around, but it definitely won\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n

First, though, he needs to get through a week with the Wranglers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe hasn\u2019t played this year, he was hurt in pre-season, so he\u2019s in a situation where he can come down and have real practices with a team and then get into games and ultimately be back in a Flames jersey as soon as possible,\u201d said Flames assistant general manager and Wranglers GM Brad Pascall. \u201cThere\u2019s where his process has led.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we\u2019re in the same city, but also because Marty has played with a number of these guys already over the past couple of years and is a product of our development system, it\u2019s not foreign to him or the players around him. It\u2019s a great step for him to be able to step into the NHL ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through two days of practice at WinSport, Pospisil didn\u2019t suffer any setbacks. That\u2019s another step towards a return.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s had a really good couple of days,\u201d said Wranglers head coach Brett Sutter. \u201cI think he\u2019s feeling good about his game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought he worked really hard yesterday and competed and looked like he was able to handle the physicality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pospisil wasn\u2019t shying away from using his body in practice, especially in one-on-one drills. Many players need to get hit or throw a hit before they can fully feel confident being back after an injury, but Pospisil said he\u2019s already feeling like he\u2019s proven to himself that he\u2019s ready to play physically.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s part of my game,\u201d Pospisil said. \u201cIf I want to be strong on the puck and make a play and make space for my teammates, I need to use my body and my physicality.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martin Pospisil isn\u2019t going to change his game. He gets asked about that a lot. The Calgary Flames…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[16357,895,26,163,5294,896,5,5843,4,1584,27],"class_list":["post-408717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary-flames","tag-brett-sutter","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-flames","tag-calgary-wranglers","tag-calgaryflames","tag-flames","tag-hockey","tag-martin-pospisil","tag-nhl","tag-physicality","tag-vancouver-canucks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115898269245759683","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408717","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=408717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}