Jokes aside, there\u2019s plenty of reasons to smile about Gross\u2019 pro debut. The former St. Cloud State pivot captained his college team this past winter and for his efforts, was named the NCHC\u2019s best defensive forward despite leading his team with 41 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s been around, I think he\u2019s had lots of time to spend with our coaches to understand how we play the game,\u201d Huska explained. \u201cHe’s practiced with our players now. So it just seemed like tonight was the right night to get him in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s quite a cool thing when a guy gets to play his first game, let alone a guy that’s from the area. He\u2019s a really neat story, so I’m excited to see him play tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gross will take his first NHL strides tonight wearing No. 39, on a Flames fourth line with Adam Klapka and Martin Pospisil. Just six years ago, he wore the same colours in this city as a member of the U18 AAA Flames.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And just like those days in Calgary\u2019s Northwest, he\u2019s expecting to have plenty of family and friends on hand this evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’ll be quite a bit,\u201d Gross said, when asked how many onlookers will be taking in tonight\u2019s contest. \u201cA lot of people watching, too, from afar, a lot of friends and family (that couldn\u2019t) make it, but, yeah, there’ll be a ton of people here watching.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll be fun to go through this and experience it with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
And while Gross admits there might be a butterfly or 10 swirling around in his stomach, Huska\u2019s message to his newest centre is simply to do what comes naturally.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think really the most important thing is he just goes out there and plays,\u201d the bench boss said. \u201cEnjoy the moment, make sure he’s very competitive when he’s on the ice and don’t overthink it.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust go and play the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jokes aside, there\u2019s plenty of reasons to smile about Gross\u2019 pro debut. The former St. Cloud State pivot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-553707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-calgary","10":"tag-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}