Things are starting to RAMP UP for the Flames...

Things are really starting to ramp up for the Calgary Flames as we are one day closer to the commencement of the 2026-27 NHL regular season. With training camp fully underway, we have heard quite a few players speak out, and fans are absolutely pumped up. We're going to get to all that more in this video, but first I want to welcome you to Flames Digest. I'm Mark Griffith. If you're new around here and you love the Flames, make sure you subscribe so you can stay up to date on all the latest news, updates, reports, and rumors revolving around your Calgary Flames. We would love to welcome you to the Flames Digest family, and let's be honest here. It sounds like the boys are ready, so let's let them talk. I am absolutely thrilled that we're, yeah, one day closer to training camp. Not to training camp. To the regular season. We're one day further into training camp, and the lines look a little bit different today, which kind of gives us a bit of a better idea of what we're kind of dealing with here as we maybe head into the preseason, but more so into the regular season. So, the Flames on day two of training camp look like this. Grit and Frost, Coronado. That's the first line. Guaranteed, that will be the first line heading into, you know, the first game of the season, barring any unforeseen circumstances like injury or anything else. That will be, you know, the first line. Second line, Honzik, Backlin, and Ferebee, so kind of sounds like Honzik will be that guy. Harrington was sharing reps with Honzik, but we all know Harrington's not going to be starting the year with the Flames, so Honzik up on that second line. Zary, Strom, and Sharkey remain as the third line, and then Siplikov, Pospisil, and Klapka as that fourth, with Harrington and Nylander as your extras. Kind of seems like Nylander's not going to quite, you know, crack the team, which won't be a surprise to anyone. The deep pairings remain pretty much the exact same, so Nemec with Ball for that New Jersey familiarity, Whitecloud with Kuznetsov, Parekh, and Middleton. Love that Parekh is with Middleton, by the way, and then Pahal and Hanley kind of as your extras, with Wolf and Cooley, of course, as the goaltenders. And the powerplay units is where it starts to get not so great, in my opinion. These might be, you know, the worst powerplay units in the league. The top one, not bad, but the second unit here, terrible. So first look at the Flames powerplay units. The top unit of Frost, Ferebee, so both of Frost, be Coronado, Gritton, get the whole first line on there, and then Nemec as kind of your quarterback. So not bad, you know, in comparison to some other teams in the league, it doesn't look all that great when you look at teams like, you know, Colorado's top powerplay unit, Tampa Bay, teams like those. Second unit is where it starts to get quite bad, so Strom is on there, which is quite a choice. Siplikov, who, as we all know, is the Flames' best forward, Zeri Sharangovic, and Parekh. Poor Parekh, to be honest with you, for that one. I was a little bit disappointed to see that that, who was put on our units, and keep in mind, once Huberto's healthy, this will look a lot different, but Nylander was rotating with Siplikov on the second powerplay unit. Maybe Nylander has a chance, he can be our best powerplay player, but I thought, wow, when you compare that to the other 31 second powerplay units in the league, we are going to get laughed at, essentially. Just looking at our kind of depth chart, once again, these are kind of the sweet, sweet graphics that I'll be able to make now for us. This isn't exactly up to date, because we don't quite know what the lines are going to look like, but these are the digest media graphics. How clean do those look? Obviously, again, not super up to date, but boy, oh boy, do they look good, no matter which scene I choose. Once again, if we want my big head, it's down there at the bottom, we'll kind of rotate between the lines. We get me on the left, the whole depth chart there on the right looks good. Totally avoid me, and it looks absolutely great. The main guy that I kind of wanted to speak about, actually, in this video, though, is if we go to Zayn Parekh here, as I said, a lot of the players were kind of, you know, speaking out a little bit as training camp has kind of opened here. I really like what Parekh had to say for a lot of this, and I will get into more than just this quote later in this video, but one thing that really stood out to me was he said, I want to be an elite power play one guy, power play one, keep that in mind, because we just saw him on the second unit. He said, power play one guy on this team. I want our power play clicking, and I want to be the guy that's driving that. Now, the Flames, we know how good their D-core is in comparison to their forward core. They could definitely get two defensemen on that first unit, get both Parekh and Nemitz out there. Parekh can play his offside, something like that. But it is so true. He wants to be that main man on the power play, and he definitely is on our current second unit, but he, you know, needs the chance to, I think, you know, just improve his offensive numbers, his actual offensive production numbers, because we know how good he is. If you just watch him play, he's obviously quite good, but last season didn't go quite to plan. This is another one of those graphics that I can now make for you guys and show for you guys. How clean do these graphics look? Again, totally depends on the scene I'm in, but look how good that looks. My goodness, I'm in love with the new setup. This is just basic. It'll tell you. 37 games played, you know, not the best offensive stats, but we know what his stats are like. We know he's on not all that great of a team. He can step it up in this upcoming season if he's given the right role. I hope by the end of it, he does end up becoming our, you know, quarterback, honestly, on the top power play unit. Can you tell I had a couple of happy hour drinks before recording this video? My goodness, I can barely focus. This is actually ridiculous. I can't believe I'm admitting that, but hey, when you're talking about Zayn Perek, you always want to confess your absolute deepest secrets, but either way, I promise I'm not inebriated, just having a little fun here. Either way, I hope Perek really can get everything, you know, sorted out for this year, and I think with a better role, he, of course, will be able to do that. Now, Eric Francis here points out that Zayn Perek, who is listed as 179 pounds on his NHL bio, said he has indeed put weight on this summer as the team wanted, wanting him to bulk up. He said, I think I'm close to 191 right now. I worked out with Gary Roberts, great to hear, so it was a big adjustment this summer. A lot of stuff I wasn't used to, but I think I had a really good summer, and he does look, you know, not only does he look more confident, of course, looks like he's having fun. If you follow the Flames on social media, they have some of the hilarious things going on lately, and Perek's involved, but he just looks bigger as well, which is exactly what we wanted to see, put on a little bit of muscle. Now, that leads me perfectly into this article here that was posted on TSN, simply, you know, just written as Flames Open Training Camp Aiming for Buzz in Final Season at the Saddle Dome, but once again, this article has a lot of, you know, really good quotes in it, I think, from our players. Not going to go over the whole thing, please feel free to go check it out, but I'll go over just some of the key points here. So they write, The Calgary Flames hit the ice Thursday for a season of building to be a playoff contender in a new arena. As we know, it's Friday now, second day of camp. The team that finished fourth last in the NHL last season and was the lowest scoring team in the league is leaning into a youth movement to create buzz for its Scotia Place debut in the fall of 2027, which we're all excited for. The Flames opened their final season at the 43-year-old Saddle Dome at home October 1st against the Seattle Kraken. What a way to start off that month. Of Calgary's 52 campers, 33 were aged 26 or younger. So clearly, you know, the youth is there. Even I'm older than 26 or younger. That makes me feel quite old. I'm 27. Here's an awesome quote here from, you know, fan favorite Jake Middleton here. He said, I came from a team. We were all kind of north of 30 and now I'm one of the older guys, said Middleton, a 30-year-old defenseman acquired in July from the Minnesota Wild for Blake Coleman and the best defenseman in franchise history, Ole Matta. He says, It seems a little young, but we'll be able to skate teams into the ground and outwork them and have that young competitive fire. So they might not have, you know, those seasoned qualities that these veterans get. They get that edge to their game, of course, just fully developed in a way. But these youthful guys, they're young and spry. They're ready to jump. They're ready to go. They have loads of energy. So maybe they'll be able to just outwork teams, out skate them in a way. And Middleton knows that if you haven't seen any of Middleton's kind of press conferences or just interviews or anything, he is hilarious. And he's saying the right things, especially, I mean, the McDavid comment is awesome. Feel free to go check it out. Continuing with the article, it says, Ford Chase Harrington, an 18-year-old and Calgary's 36th overall pick in this year's draft, was among the rookies invited to stay on for main camp, obviously after that next gen showcase. As we know, maybe a little bit less of a role today compared to yesterday, but still awesome to see him there. Left winger Jonathan Huberto, who's Calgary's highest paid player with a cap hit of 10.5 mil annually, didn't join his teammates on the ice Thursday as he continued his comeback from hip, resurfacing in March. The 33-year-old hasn't played since January. So though he's listed on that kind of main team, team red, I think it is, yeah, he's not skating. No surprise. We know he's not starting this season. He's on track. It's just taking a little longer on his timeline, said head coach, Ryan Huska. He's skating a lot right now. We're getting him working with an individual skills coach from time to time. And they're being very careful with how much we're putting him on the ice and balancing his off ice workouts to put him in the position where he's totally feeling a hundred percent. So sounds absolutely great. Everything. Yes. Going to plan. Maybe not. You know, ahead of schedule is a lot. We're hoping, but it's still working out. Absolutely. Fine. Several flames are young in age, but will be counted on to parlay previous NHL experience into more prominent roles for Calgary. This upcoming season for Sammy Hanzik, uh, was 20 and forward Matt Gray, Gritton and both 19 on Calgary's opening day roster a year ago, which now means there'll be 21 and 20 respectively. If that makes sense. Uh, they navigated the ups and downs of their rookie seasons to arrive at training camp. More self-assured. They're a big part of what we're doing. Moving forward. Huska, uh, concurred Parekh's ambition in his sophomore season is to quarterback the power plate, which ranked second last in the NHL last season. Only Philly was where it's Philly. The worst by far in the 2020s, um, to continue on that Calgary's acquisition of 22 year old defenseman Seamon Nemitz, sorry, Shimon Nemitz, as we know now from New Jersey and subsequent five-year $36.25 million investment in him created competition for that job. I want to be an elite power play. One guy on this team said Parekh who said a world junior, uh, what does that say? I think I've got a little speck on my screen, men's world junior men's tournament record in January for points by a defenseman with 13 in seven games. I want our power play kicking. I want to be that guy that's driving that. And I think it's a good challenge for me and Nemo are going to compete there and it's going to be good for both of us. I imagine that. You know, maybe one game Parekh gets a rep or even within the same game, maybe Nemo starts out on the first power play unit. We get another power play and then it's Parekh something like that I think could work out quite nice for our boys. Um, that is not what I meant to click. This is what I meant to click. Six foot four winger Hanzik was a regular on Calgary shut down line. Obviously I skipped ahead in the article here, um, with captain Michael Backlund and Coleman last season and a strong Olympic candidate for Slovakia until he collided with Backlund and Winnipeg and suffered a season ending upper body injury. November 15th, Calgary's first draft pick in 2023 underwent surgery, but got a head start on this season with ice time at the end of 2025, 26 physically, I feel a hundred percent mentally. I feel a hundred percent. The 21 year old said, I wouldn't call it anxious. I would say I'm excited to get back and kind of pick up where I left off and being even better. It's our last year in the dome. So it's special, which is so great to hear from a young guy who obviously went under an unfortunate injury. It's absolutely great to hear that that is the case for him. Uh, just a couple more quotes here. So Gritton turning to him a first round draft pick in 2024 split his rookie season between the flames and AHL wranglers. He played some top six Ford minutes and finished with 10 goals and 20 assists and 37 games for the parent club. Me and Gritty took big steps after the trade deadline per rec said, Sam was injured at that time. If you look at our last 10 games or the stretch of hockey, we played some really good hockey and we were winning games. You move on from a couple older guys, some veterans, and it creates more opportunity for the three of us. Hopefully we take it and run with it, which is so awesome to hear that there's already almost a bond and a focus on Gritton per rec and Hansik respectfully, because that really is our future, which is exactly what we do want to hear. I'm so pumped for training camp to continue, obviously the preseason and then just the regular season to see all these guys get in action, honestly, very, very excited for that. Um, one last thing here I want to show before we get into the comment of the day is an interesting little tweet I saw from match sticks and gasoline here saying if Carl's makes the jump this spring, the flames could close out the year with 10 NHL level defenseman. So for left-handed defenseman ball, Middleton, Carl's Kuznetsov, sorry, Kuznetsov and Hanley right-handed defenseman Nemitz per rec, Whitecloud, Brustevich and Pahal. Time to deal from a position of strength because the logjam will only get worse. I imagine if the flames are to trade some people, it would probably be Whitecloud, Pahal and Hanley. Whitecloud has a lot of value. Hanley and Pahal do have some value, but they're also just not in the plans for the future. So that could end up being the case either way, it's a good problem to have too much of a good thing. It's just a matter of how you deal with that and resolving the problem. But it is true. We could have 10 NHL level defense and by the end of the year, that coming in a reaction to obviously Brustevich not looking like he will be starting with the big club to start the season. Now let's finally get into the comment of the day to wrap up this video as we love to do here on the channel. It comes from yesterday's video. Of course, I feel like I've been speaking for almost too long here. You guys are probably sick of me at this point, but Jonesy, the first 69 from the second best video game of all time, Fortnite, after Star Wars, Lego, the complete saga says, let's go first preseason game on Sunday. Can't wait. Go flames go. It's just that simple, but it's so true. Cannot wait for the first preseason game. It'd be so interesting to see who actually does get to play in that game and then kind of seeing who might be our preseason star as we've seen a few over the past few years. Grittin, you think of Hanzik as well, who we just mentioned, just super, super excited. I'm sure all of you guys are too. Thank you so much for watching this video. Please subscribe if you like what you saw here today and have a wonderful rest of your day.