Calgary Flames Season Opener Primer

After nearly five months, official Calgary Flames hockey is coming back to the Scotiabank Saddledome. They will kick off their season on Thursday, October 12th against the defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Colorado Avalanche.

This will be a big challenge and one that comes up against a team with quite a different identity than they had in the 2021-22 season. Here’s what you need to know about the Flames going into this season.

Calgary Flames Season Opener Primer

Notable Departures

Some large offseason moves by the Flames were pretty hard to miss if you follow along with hockey news. Most notably were Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau. Two players that made up the Flames top line and two forwards that had career years last season. Johnny Gaudreau signed with the Columbus Blue Jackets and Matthew Tkachuk signed with the Florida Panthers.

On a lesser scale, the Flames also lost Sean Monahan to the Montreal Canadiens. Monahan missed their postseason run to injury and has been fighting other nagging injuries almost every other season previously. He was a large foundational player for this era of Flames hockey but his play did decline in recent years most likely due to how hard the sport was on his body.

New Faces

There are always minor lineup switches in the offseason but this offseason was particularly productive for the Flames. Their whole core of superstars was swapped out with some pretty substantial signings.

Jonathan Huberdeau, Nazem Kadri and MacKenzie Weegar are now some of the newest members of the Flames. Not only did they sign, but they also extended their contracts and bought into the team for the next seven to nine years.

Opening Night Roster

Training camp has come to an end, and these are the players that made the cut for opening night.

Forwards

• Jonathan Huberdeau
• Mikael Backlund
• Milan Lucic
• Blake Coleman
• Kevin Rooney
• Trevor Lewis
• Brett Ritchie
• Elias Lindholm
• Dillon Dube
• Adam Ruzicka
• Tyler Toffoli
• Andrew Mangiapane
• Nazem Kadri

Defencemen

• Connor Mackey
• Rasmus Andersson
• Chris Tanev
• Nikita Zadorov
• MacKenzie Weegar
• Michael Stone
• Noah Hanifin

Goaltenders

• Jacob Markstrom
• Dan Vladar

Blasty’s Back

The Flames announced their alternate jersey’s this week and the fan-favorite logo known as Blasty has returned to the Calgary market. They will be wearing their alternate jersey in 12 games this year with the season debut of these threads taking place on November 29th.

The last time the Flames wore this type of jersey was back in the 2020-21 season but it was really made into an iconic look back in the early 2000s.

Sutter’s Here to Stay

Darryl Sutter has been a refreshing coaching change for the Flames for the last couple seasons and as of October 8th, he is inked for another two seasons. 

Darryl Sutter came out of retirement to join the Flames behind the bench and his mission has been clear. Bring the cup back to Calgary. He has reshaped the culture and lead this team down the path he lead his previous cup-winning teams in the past. They have not reached that goal yet, so he still feels there is work to be done with this group.

Captain TBD?

Some fan rumors were swirling around on Twitter about some educated guesses on who the Flames’ next captain may be. They played last season without any C’s on anyone’s jersey and the trending rumor was Jonathan Huberdeau was the leading candidate to be the next Flames captain since Mark Giordano.

Darryl Sutter addressed this conversation in a recent press conference saying,

“There’s not a clear-cut one. I think our 30 and older age group, we’ve got two guys that represent us very well and quite honest, you could say co-captains, in Mikael (Backlund) and Tanny (Chris Tanev). But I also think in that group there are, what, about seven Stanley Cups? Those guys don’t have to have a C on them. They get it. Right? It’s still got to come out of that 23 to 29 age group.”

This season feels as close to a fresh start as the Flames have had in recent history and there are a lot of high hopes from other hockey media members. Many selected the Flames to end the season first or second in the Pacific Division. It all starts on Thursday when game one of the 2022-23 season takes place.