{"id":906595,"date":"2026-09-23T12:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T12:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/906595\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T12:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T12:44:13","slug":"flames-takeaways-parekh-looks-ready-to-be-offensive-difference-maker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/906595\/","title":{"rendered":"Flames Takeaways: Parekh looks ready to be offensive difference-maker"},"content":{"rendered":"

CALGARY \u2014 As hesitant as hockey fans are to pay money for pre-season hockey, Calgary Flames<\/a> fans got their money\u2019s worth Tuesday with Zayne Parekh<\/a> proving to be worth the price of admission.<\/p>\n

Whirling, twirling, dishing and dashing, this is the Parekh Dome dwellers hoped they\u2019d see when the Flames drafted him ninth overall two summers back.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s a shred of the self-doubt left that plagued him last season, it appears he\u2019s out-skated it with that sublime step that makes him one of the best skaters the organization has seen in eons.<\/p>\n

He used it to go end-to-end with the type of power-play zone entry that causes crowds to gasp, interrupted by a juke-and-jive fake drop pass at the blue line that allowed him to get in alone for a great scoring chance.<\/p>\n

One period later he\u2019d factor into two goals, as part of an outing that gives plenty of hope the 20-year-old is not only ready to make the full-time jump to the NHL, but appears ready to be an offensive difference-maker.<\/p>\n

In a pre-season with no real battles in Flamesland, the team iced what will essentially be their opening-night roster against Vancouver in a 3-1 win against Canucks rookies.<\/p>\n

What mattered most was that the most intriguing prospect on the roster was also the best player on the ice.<\/p>\n

A sick toe-drag on Kirill Kudryavtsev in the first period sparked a huge response from the crowd, as did a particularly impressive four-on-four shift in which he circled the offensive zone before making a great pass to Ryan Strome for a slot shot.<\/p>\n

Less than five minutes after earning a second assist on a Joel Farabee<\/a> power-play goal, Parekh added another helper on Sam Honzek\u2019s rebound goal, which was a byproduct of Parekh\u2019s cheeky dash in from the point to get in alone with a chance from the side of the net.<\/p>\n

Two nights after racking up ten shot attempts, Parekh threw nine more at the net, forcing four saves.<\/p>\n

Other notables on a night in which the Flames outshot the Canucks 30-9 and Matt Coronato had the snipe of the night with a top-shelf finish:<\/p>\n

Playing on the top line with Coronato and Morgan Frost, Gridin made a great pass to set up Joel Farabee\u2019s game-opening snipe.<\/p>\n

Gridin\u2019s real magic came minutes later, when he made a nifty drop to Frost as they entered the offensive zone, starting a pretty passing play that Coronato buried with a roof job.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of reasons why Gridin is expected to be the Flames\u2019 most exciting offensive player this season.<\/p>\n

The coach has made a big deal about going to the net harder this year and nobody on the roster does it better, more consistently, or more fearlessly than the big Czech winger.<\/p>\n

He was at his feisty best, continually crashing the crease, causing issues, creating rebounds and cleaning up the carnage caused by fellow muckraker, Martin Pospisil.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Klapka also made a deft pass from behind the net onto Pospisil\u2019s stick for a great scoring chance. The duo will be fun to watch this season.<\/p>\n

Scored on a rebound and was the first one over the boards for every penalty kill alongside Mikael Backlund.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A goal and an assist, while continuing to establish that he\u2019s one of the team\u2019s best penalty killers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gridin \u2013 Frost \u2013 Coronato
Zary \u2013 Strome – Sharangovich\u00a0
Honzek \u2013 Backlund \u2013 Farabee
Tysplakov \u2013 Pospisil \u2013 Klapka<\/p>\n

Bahl – Nemec
Kuznetsov \u2013 Whitecloud
Middleton – Parekh\u00a0<\/p>\n

PP1
Parekh \u2013 Frost \u2013 Coronato \u2013 Gridin \u2013 Farabee<\/p>\n

PP2
Zary – Strome – Tsyplakov \u2013 Sharangovich – Nemec<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CALGARY \u2014 As hesitant as hockey fans are to pay money for pre-season hockey, Calgary Flames fans got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":906596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-906595","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\/906595","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=906595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/906595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/906596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=906595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=906595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=906595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}