\u201cIt\u2019s awesome,\u201d Kerins said of the new contract. \u201cObviously something that I wanted to get out of the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s where I wanted to be, happy that they wanted me back. Just excited to keep going here, with Calgary.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s already beaten the odds. A sixth-round pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, the product of Caledon, Ont. is one of only five players selected in his round five years ago to have suited up in an NHL contest.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s got five to his name, and that feeling of pulling on an NHL sweater – and hearing his name announced as part of a Flames goal – is something he wants to experience time and time again.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, I never really had a family member or someone really close to me to tell me how it is,\u201d Kerins said. \u201cSo that was kind of like my first taste of it; you\u2019re not sure what it\u2019s like but once you get there, it\u2019s like, \u2018Wow! This is cool, something pretty special and something I want to do for a long time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just those NHL appearances that are driving Kerins to push harder this summer. He potted a career-high 33 goals last season, leading the AHL\u2019s Calgary Wranglers with 62 points, all while earning his first AHL All-Star appearance this past February in California.<\/p>\n
One of the people he\u2019s leaned on for tutelage – former Wranglers bench boss and current Flames assistant Trent Cull – just happens to be in his corner, behind the big club\u2019s bench now, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe improved me as a player a lot, he taught me a lot on both sides of the puck and how to be an everyday AHLer,\u201d Kerins said. \u201cI give him a lot of credit for giving me an opportunity to show what I can do at that level, and ultimately get that shot in the NHL.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kerins plans on spending the rest of the summer at home, skating with a pro group in Toronto that includes Flames centreman Morgan Frost.<\/p>\n
But come early September, he\u2019ll be back in Alberta with an eye on cracking the Flames opening-night roster.<\/p>\n
To keep living out that dream, in front of the roar of the C of Red.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is gonna be one of my first training camps where – I guess you could say – I\u2019m sniffing for the big club,\u201d said Kerins. \u201cIt\u2019s just something that I\u2019m excited for, I\u2019ve just gotta stay focused on what (my) job is right now: getting faster, getting stronger.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the time comes, I\u2019ll be ready for camp and then, we\u2019ll see how it shakes out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s awesome,\u201d Kerins said of the new contract. \u201cObviously something that I wanted to get out of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}