1. Youth Gone Wild<\/p>\n
One, three, or even five (or more) years down the road, the casual Flames historian might turn to a third-period moment from Tuesday as the start of something special.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On paper, it was a powerplay goal that tied Game 70 of the 2025-26 season at 2-2. But in reality, the goal was so much more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Zayne Parekh’s first goal on Scotiabank Saddledome ice, assisted by Matvei Gridin and Matt Coronato. Three key pieces of the Flames’ future and – quite obviously – integral cogs in the team’s present-day success, too.<\/p>\n
Gridin joked post-game that he’s hopeful he and Parekh can link up on plays for the next 15 years, but that goal – that moment – might just be the spark that resonates in the two rookies’ minds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They belong here.<\/p>\n
For Parekh, it’s been a season of learning. Playing against men for the first time after a dominant OHL career, the 19-year-old is really starting to find his stride in the NHL game.<\/p>\n
And that’s not just based on an eye test, his Head Coach figures Parekh is learning on the fly quite well, too.<\/p>\n
Even if until Tuesday, he hadn’t lit the lamp yet this season.<\/p>\n
“He just needs to remember that he\u2019s doing a lot of great things away from the puck. He\u2019s learning how to play the game at the\u00a0NHL level,” Ryan Huska said of Parekh’s progression. “He\u2019s a smaller defenceman, that\u2019s a skilled guy and it\u2019s hard to break in as a 19-year-old.<\/p>\n
“I think he\u2019s doing an excellent job, and a lot of that pressure, I feel like, gets put on him from outside sources at times. What he is doing, though, is learning to be more of a complete player and I think he\u2019s done an excellent job at that. The points are going to come for him, that is a matter of time. It\u2019s starting to feel comfortable, and figuring out how to play in the NHL.”<\/p>\n
Gridin, who would be playing at about a 40-point pace had he spent the entire season at the NHL level, is fast becoming one of the Flames’ premier offensive threats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And for Huska, the young Russian has the self-confidence (actually, boatloads of it) to let his game do a lot of the talking.<\/p>\n
“I think he just understands the game a little bit more right now, so that, maybe, is translating into more offensive production for him,” Huska said of Gridin’s recent form. “He\u2019s always got a great bit of swagger that, as coaches, we quite enjoy.<\/p>\n
“Not a lot of young guys have what he\u2019s got, and I just feel like him understanding the game a little bit better now is putting him in positions to actually finish, and generate some offence.”<\/p>\n
Those positions – as evidenced by Tuesday’s win over the Kings – now include powerplay time at key moments.<\/p>\n
And why not? With 11 games left in the regular season, there’s no time like the present for the future to strut its stuff.<\/p>\n
Real-time results, like\u00a0Parekh’s first career powerplay goal, make for special moments.<\/p>\n
For Huska, those moments are building blocks, confidence-boosters.<\/p>\n
And for his new, young core, they’re standard-setters, too.<\/p>\n
“At that moment in the game, when we\u2019re thinking about winning games and trying to maintain, establish, push a standard that we want to have, you have to find a way to score that goal,” he said. “Happy for Zayne.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I know he\u2019s probably been waiting a long time for that, but really happy for the powerplay in that moment.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1. Youth Gone Wild One, three, or even five (or more) years down the road, the casual Flames…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-562301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562301","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=562301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}