{"id":536871,"date":"2026-04-02T16:47:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:47:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/536871\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T16:47:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:47:16","slug":"who-should-get-the-flames-final-two-ahl-call-ups-this-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/536871\/","title":{"rendered":"Who should get the Flames\u2019 final two AHL call-ups this season?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pals, with eight games left in the regular season for the Calgary Flames, we know one thing for sure: the Flames won\u2019t be in the Stanley Cup playoffs.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019ve also learned some things down the stretch, including that Ryan Strome\u00a0and Olli Maatta\u00a0still have it, and that a few of the Flames\u2019 kids \u2013 especially Matvei Gridin and Zayne Parekh \u2013 have learned a lot this season and are starting to show off what they\u2019ve learned at the NHL level.<\/p>\n

So what else might we learn?<\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s where the Flames\u2019 final call-ups from the American Hockey League\u2019s Calgary Wranglers may come in handy.<\/p>\n

Starting this season, teams are allocated five \u201cregular\u201d (non-emergency) recalls after the trade deadline, with four players allowed to be on the NHL roster at a time on \u201cregular\u201d call-ups. (For reference: \u201cemergency\u201d call-ups are ones required to help teams meet lineup minimums, \u201cregular\u201d call-ups are to have extra bodies on the NHL roster.)<\/p>\n

As of Thursday morning, the Flames have three players already up on regular recalls: Gridin, Hunter Brzustewicz and Brennan Othmann. They have two call-ups left, though they would need to send one person down to bring up their last call-up.<\/p>\n

So who might they use their last two call-ups on? Here are our suggestions.<\/p>\n

Nick CicekAn undrafted defenceman who spent time with the San Jose Sharks organization on an entry-level deal before heading to Germany for a season, Cicek joined the Flames system as a free agent in July and he\u2019s been a Swiss Army knife on their blueline. He can play the left or right side, and he\u2019s a stylistic chameleon able to adapt to the needs of whatever partner he\u2019s with<\/a>.On a Wranglers team that\u2019s had some challenges on the back end this season \u2013 and that lost the services of Ilya Solovyov, Yan Kuznetsov and Hunter Brzustewicz, half of their usual blueline, for much of the year \u2013 Cicek has been the defensive MVP<\/a>. It would be really nice to reward him for his strong role this season with some NHL games.Rory Kerins<\/p>\n

A sixth-round pick by the Flames back in 2020, Kerins initially struggled to find his game at the AHL level. But something clicked for him in 2024-25. And he went from someone that many \u2013 including me, honestly \u2013 thought was a long-shot to get a qualifying offer to stay with the Flames organization ended up becoming one of their most interesting minor-league players.<\/p>\n

Kerins has been flirting with a point-per-game scoring pace at the AHL level for the past two seasons, but he hasn\u2019t gotten a ton of runway at the NHL level yet to show what he can do. Why not now?<\/p>\n

Sam Morton<\/p>\n

So y\u2019know how we glossed Cicek for being such a superb defender on a team lacking defensive depth? If you replaced \u201cCicek\u201d with \u201cSam Morton\u201d and \u201cdefensive depth\u201d for \u201ccentre depth,\u201d it\u2019s a similar story. Originally a college free agent signing, Morton has become a really relied-upon fixture in the Wranglers lineup. What he lacks in dynamism he makes up for in reliability and consistency, and he\u2019s usually the first player over the boards in hard-minutes situations.<\/p>\n

He was up briefly this season before John Beecher was claimed off waivers, and he performed well. Why not give him another look?<\/p>\n

William Stromgren<\/p>\n

A second-round pick by the Flames back in 2021, Stromgren has been with the Wranglers for the past three seasons and he\u2019s improved his scoring pace in each of the three seasons. We\u2019ll be the first to admit that he\u2019s had some consistency challenges, but when he\u2019s on his game he\u2019s very good. He made his NHL debut earlier this season and got a few games in, albeit on the fourth line, and it would be helpful from an evaluation standpoint to maybe get some additional looks at him with the big club.<\/p>\n

Aydar Suniev<\/p>\n

Suniev has a ton of upside, and it might be productive to bring him to the NHL to see how far he\u2019s progressed before the summer.<\/p>\n

PRESENTED BY VIVID SEATS\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pals, with eight games left in the regular season for the Calgary Flames, we know one thing for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[895,26,5294,896,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-536871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary-flames","8":"tag-calgary","9":"tag-calgary-flames","10":"tag-calgaryflames","11":"tag-flames","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536871","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=536871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}