GET TICKETS<\/a><\/p>\nCalgary comes into Thursday\u2019s contest having won two of their last three games. Solid efforts in Anaheim, and on Scotiabank Saddledome ice against Carolina have the group trending in the right direction. And while the two practice days the Flames have enjoyed this week have involved breaking in new, snazzy equipment, they\u2019ve also allowed for a renewed focus on details.<\/p>\n
In particular – per Head Coach Ryan Huska – with the puck.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to do a better job of playing deep into the offensive zone. A lot of our issues this year, that we\u2019ve had to deal with, have been giving Grade \u2018A\u2019 chances off the rush,\u201d Huska explained Tuesday. \u201cA lot of is, sometimes, a poor decision with the puck, a turnover higher in the zone, or not making your opposing defenceman have to turn and go back to get pucks, to wear them down as the night goes on.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe better we are at that, the more we play in the offensive zone. We were able to get 12 high-danger chances (against Carolina) because they were playing the right way with regards to putting pucks much deeper in the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the other end of the rink, Yan Kuznetsov is getting used to being the elder statesman on his pairing, despite still being more than four months away from his 25th birthday.<\/p>\n
The steady Russian rearguard has Zayne Parekh by his side, and given the younger Parekh\u2019s offensive proclivities, Kuznetsov is leaning on his experience with a former Calgary d-man to help his unit succeed.<\/p>\n
“Everybody knows he\u2019s a wizard with the puck. He can make plays and skate as well as anybody else in this league,\u201d Kuznetsov said of Parekh. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to play a solid, simple game, get (out of) our D-zone \u2026 just let him be in the O-zone, let him do his thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWeegsy (MacKenzie Weegar) was an offensive guy, Zayne is the same thing. Offensively, maybe they play a little different within the game – like they do it with different tools – but for me, it\u2019s the same role.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s opponent also brings out the feels for a pair of Flames skaters. Jake Middleton will face his former club for the first time since that July deal that saw Blake Coleman and Olli Maatta head to the Land of 10,000 Lakes, while Ben Jones – recalled this week from the AHL\u2019s Wranglers – could be in line for his Calgary NHL debut after appearing in 54 contests for Minnesota over the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
Jones has been skating in Mikael Backlund\u2019s place at practice this week; the Flames captain left Sunday\u2019s 3-2 win over Carolina late in the third period and is deemed day-to-day with an upper body ailment.<\/p>\n
Regardless of who slots in, though, Huska is eager to see whether his group can replicate their winning effort over the defending champion Hurricanes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An evening that brought good cheer, but also a renewed reminder in details, and what needs to happen for that winning spirit to stick around a while.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe key thing for them is to recognize which areas we did really well in that allowed us to be in a game to win,\u201d said Huska.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they\u2019re starting to recognize what needs to be present in their game all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1. Let’s Get Wild Two outta three ain\u2019t bad. And that\u2019s the situation the Flames find themselves trying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":942332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":["post-942331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942331","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=942331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}