{"id":913239,"date":"2026-09-28T20:48:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T20:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/913239\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T20:48:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T20:48:22","slug":"calgary-flames-open-farewell-season-at-saddledome-seeking-playoff-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/913239\/","title":{"rendered":"Calgary Flames open farewell season at Saddledome seeking playoff return"},"content":{"rendered":"

CALGARY \u2014 The \u201cFarewell Season\u201d at the Saddledome is a pivotal one for the Calgary Flames<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Calgary (34-39-9) ranked 29th out of the 32 teams and was the lowest-scoring team in the NHL last season.<\/p>\n

Playoff expectations remain modest after missing the post-season four straight years, but the pressure is on to progress and generate buzz ahead of a move across the street to the $1.2-billion Scotia Place next season.<\/p>\n

The Flames start their 2026-27 regular season and the team\u2019s 44th at the Saddledome at home Thursday to the Seattle Kraken<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Young players with NHL experience will be counted on to accelerate both pace of play on the ice and the rebuild that began when it became clear a team that had missed the playoffs by a hair in 2025 wasn\u2019t going to get that close in 2026.<\/p>\n

Matt Coronato<\/a> led the Flames in points last season with 45, including 18 goals. Calgary looks for an offensive bump from the 23-year-old, and 25-year-old forward Connor Zary<\/a>, both entering their fourth NHL seasons.<\/p>\n

Wingers Samuel Honzek<\/a>, 21, and Matvei Gridin<\/a>, 20, as well as 20-year-old defenceman Zayne Parekh<\/a> are key cogs in the rebuild.<\/p>\n

Flames general manager Craig Conroy acquired 22-year-old defenceman Simon Nemec<\/a>, the No. 2 pick in the 2022 NHL draft, from the New Jersey Devils<\/a> in July to join Parekh in bringing puck-moving mobility to the Flames\u2019 back end.<\/p>\n

More tenacity and execution in front of opposing nets was the message coming out of training camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to make it much more difficult on the opposing goaltender to make saves,\u201d Flames head coach Ryan Huska said. \u201cThere\u2019s certain situations, even when we have players that are in Grade A scoring-chance areas, if there\u2019s nobody in a goaltenders\u2019 eyes, nine out of 10 times they\u2019re making that save. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe goalies are just too good, so you have to distract them, you\u2019ve got to disrupt their flow, their rhythm, and that means you have be willing to go to the net much harder than we had in the past. We\u2019ve done a lot of talking on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Flames either retained or acquired a few veterans to shepherd the young cohort toward the goal of playoff contention.<\/p>\n

When captain Mikael Backlund<\/a> signed a contract extension to 2028, he said it was important to him to still be a Flame when the team moves to Scotia Place. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know what people think of us, but inside this room we\u2019re still believing in ourselves and we want to go out every night and prove people wrong and be a hard team to play against and trying to be in the mix of the playoffs at the end of the season,\u201d the 37-year-old Swedish centre said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would love to finish off the Saddledome with a playoff, going into playoffs having a big game late in the season clinching playoffs, that would be really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defenceman Zach Whitecloud<\/a>, 29, arrived in January from Las Vegas. Forward Ryan Strome<\/a>, 33, was a trade-deadline acquisition from Anaheim. Defenceman Jake Middleton, 30, came as part of the Nemec trade.<\/p>\n

Morgan Frost<\/a>, 27, and Joel Farabee<\/a>, 26, were both 20-goal scorers for Calgary last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a group of really young players that are franchise-pillar pieces,\u201d Strome observed. \u201cThere\u2019s a very unique middle-aged group of guys that are trying to figure out kind of where they are in the league and there\u2019s group of older guys that are kind of like here to provide some stability, and you want to play as long as you can, so it\u2019s a good mix. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely younger team, but I think that it doesn\u2019t feel super-young to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calgary\u2019s fortunes ride on 25-year-old goaltender Dustin Wolf<\/a> returning to the form that made him a finalist for the NHL\u2019s rookie award in 2025.<\/p>\n

Power play quarterback<\/p>\n

Expect to see Parekh and Nemec quarterbacking Calgary\u2019s power play with internal competition for the top unit. Only the Philadelphia Flyers<\/a>\u2019 power play was worse last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a luxury now that we have two guys on the back end that if one is really going one night, they keep going, and if he stays with it, we\u2019ll just let him run with it,\u201d Huska said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re having an off night, it\u2019s easy for us to go to the other guy now because he\u2019s going to want that role as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who gets the letters?<\/p>\n

The Flames\u2019 leadership group behind captain Backlund is renovating after last season\u2019s trades of Blake Coleman<\/a>, Rasmus Andersson<\/a>, Nazem Kadri<\/a> and Mackenzie Weegar. Jonathan Huberdeau<\/a> is also sidelined to start the season after March hip resurfacing.<\/p>\n

\u201cHubie is a guy that we will miss to start the year because he brings a lot of different intangibles to our room both on and off the ice, but we have a good group of older players\u201d Huska said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like the leadership group that\u2019s going to start to form here. We have a really good group that will pull in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 28, 2026.<\/p>\n

Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CALGARY \u2014 The \u201cFarewell Season\u201d at the Saddledome is a pivotal one for the Calgary Flames. Calgary (34-39-9)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":913240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48,82],"class_list":["post-913239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913239","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=913239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}