This is EXACTLY what Calgary needed...

Despite the Calgary Flames losing last night, they got exactly what they needed from the young guys the organization wants to build around. Zane Parekh is starting to break out and everyone is taking notice, from fans to coaches to teammates. Parekh is exactly what Calgary needs. 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 why join the Flames Digest family? It's absolutely free. It helps out a ton. You get to join such a great community of Flames fans, and I sincerely do appreciate it. So thank you so much to each and every single one of you that does subscribe. But let's get into last night's game where, you know, the Calgary Flames lose their lead to Anaheim. It was, you know, a loss where it didn't necessarily, you know, feel amazing to lose, of course. But I can't remember a time where I felt so pleased with how the... The team played and still gave up a lead and lost. You know, they lost a game at home. We can't seem to beat Anaheim in the Saddle Dome. It's so funny, but yet I still feel okay after last night losing 5-3, which is, you know, something that's quite silly to say, to be honest. The Flames definitely missed Kevin Ball. I think that's part of the reason why it was so tough defensively, but that allowed Zane Parekh to, you know, play more and he was absolutely outstanding. But we'll get into the box score here. A tough outing. for Wolf in terms of the stats, but You can absolutely not blame Dustin Wolfe for the loss last night. I think at least maybe two or three of Anaheim's goals were just unsavable. And yeah, he gives up four goals on 28 shots, still makes 24 saves, but that will not go down as a quality start in our metrics, which is too bad. Again, he didn't play awful, but it wasn't enough to win the game. Gave up, obviously, the lead there. Stromgren got a goal. He got the scoring started pretty much instantly. Unfortunately, Farabee got to score in a wide open net after a nice... Dish, Hanley, who just jumped in last minute because Kevin Ball was out. He gets a goal as well. So nice to see Nacho getting on the score sheet there. Parekh, two assists. Could have been way more, to be quite honest with you, with how he was flying around. Frosty gets a couple assists, and then Kuznetsov and Nemec both pick up some assists as well. So nice to see quite a few players on the score sheet, again, despite the loss. And we didn't score four goals, which is good, because that means we didn't lose our streak of winning when we get four-plus goals. If we focus more on Wolf's stats here, again, not necessarily his fault. He was pulled, of course, for the last goal as well. Well, but yeah, just unfortunate that. You know, Anaheim is just on fire lately with their scoring and they kept their streak alive of five plus goals. So they're looking like a bit of the team that they were last year for a bit. Who knew that all you need is just Beckett Seneca to put some macaroons where, you know, he's not supposed to. But yeah, like I said, based off of our digest media metrics here, we'll not go down as a quality start for Wolf, despite. He gave up four goals, but that he was only a zero point or a negative 0.7 below, you know, the save versus expected. So yeah, it's not exactly his most. Amazing start ever, but it was, you know, not the worst loss. And where does that put us in the standings? Well, we obviously didn't get any more points, so we're still on 15 at 7-9-1 now. And Anaheim, they are trending upwards towards kind of that playoff picture. I say that as we're only, you know, 17 games into the season here. But that's kind of what's going on with last night's game. But I did absolutely want to focus on Zane. I think that's what matters most here. It's talking about Zane Parekh because he was doing exactly what Calgary needs. And what do they need? They need someone to build around and Parekh is sincerely looking like that player. You know, there's already, the fundamentals are in place. You have your Dustin Wolf, maybe even your Cooley in terms of... Goal tending. The defense is totally amazing. The Fords could use some work, but we have some great prospects, of course. And then there are guys to build around, like your Gritton, your Coronado, maybe a few other players. But Parekh is kind of the star boy right now, the main piece, and he was excellent. Again, these are his stats from last night. They won't blow you away because he only got the two assists. But again, he could have had six points or something last night. Five, six, seven, eight points if he got a little puck luck and things. Things were a little bit better, but he played a lot of minutes, which was great to see. He was so good defensively, as you can see, with six blocked shots from the boy last night. It was absolutely fantastic, and he actually made a little bit of Flames history here as Parekh posts a multi-point period. So Zane Parekh, with two assists in the first period, became the first Flames defenseman to record a multi-point period at age 20 or younger since Dion Phaneuf on January 12, 2006. So it's been... You know, 20 years since we've seen a young defenseman do this for the Flames. Dion Phaneuf, honestly, I know he's kind of a joke because of what happened throughout the rest of his career, but he was almost an underrated guy when you look back on it with what happened, although that's... Slightly ridiculous of me to say, but a lot of people are taking notice. So John here, he tweeted out the fact that the intermission panel guys are glazing Zane Parekh saying he was the best player on the ice for both teams there and showcasing that elite talent that made him so highly touted when the Flames first drafted him. Could be his biggest game developing in his bright and young career with two apples already in just one period. My boy. And his, I mean, his profile picture right there is Zane Parekh, but it sincerely was just such a great game for Parekh. flying out there looks so dynamic exactly what we like to see and honestly the trust is growing with you know Huska playing him more as you can see his time on ice is kind of trending upwards and last night he played the most minutes I think he has ever played in his NHL career absolutely the most so far this season which was great to see it was over 40 seconds more than he normally on average, which is, again, just amazing to see. Well, way more than 40 seconds. Sorry, it boosted his average by 40 seconds is what I should be saying. But it was so nice to see that, you know, it's not great that Kevin Ball wasn't playing, but it did allow Parekh to play more and show off how much better he has become defensively, which I think is very important. He, of course, has been dominating on the special teams as well. The Flames have the fourth best power play in the league, and Parekh is the quarterback of that. He doesn't... You know, get involved on every single goal that the Flames have been scoring, but he has been awesome. He does have five power play points, plays over two minutes per game on that first team power play, which is just amazing to see. And he's doing fan- tastic things, which is nice to see. And Eric Francis actually wrote a very awesome long article. I believe Sportsnet also put out the video about Parekh last night, which was so cool to see. That was a great video, just showed how special he really is. But there are a lot of great quotes that I wanted to go over from this article. Won't go over the whole thing. But a main one here is, I feel like I'm playing good hockey. I feel like I belong, which he absolutely is right now. Still so many people are doubters, but come on, he looks like an NHL player. is confident, comfortable, and creating. As a result, he's starting to look every bit like a difference maker for the Flames. Again, exactly what the Flames need. So Eric Francis tweeted this out. Zane Parekh is now playing like the player the Flames thought they were getting when they made him the ninth overall pick in 2024. That's music to our ears as Flames fans. He's confident, he's comfortable, he's creating, same thing. And he's helped transform one of the league's worst power plays into the NHL's fourth best. I feel like I belong. Let's get into the column a little bit. Again, not going to go over the whole thing, but shout out to Eric Francis for another great article. So I'm just going to go over some. Key quotes here from Parekh. So he said, yeah, I'm kind of all over the place at times. He chuckled of his roving approach on the power play. Last year, I was probably scared to make some of the plays that I'm making right now, especially the start of last year. But I feel like in the last 12 months, it's been a big, big step for me. I do feel really good with the puck. I'm happy with the way things are going. And he does look so much better. Think of pre-injury Parekh last year. It was a disaster, to be quite honest. Continuing, he's not simply quarterbacking the power play. He's conducting it. Uh, another quote from him, all five of us are kind of all over the place at times, but we just move pucks really well. And we support each other, uh, wherever said the 20 year old, think of the Farabee goal last night. What a, what a passing play that was. I mean, again, wide open net for Farabee to shoot at. Everyone's doing a great job, so I do take a lot of pride in that for sure. This is a perfect example of his mastery with the man advantage came Friday against Anaheim when he took a crossing pass from Frost, and after drawing the crowd and netminder towards him, he sent it back across the ice for Joel Farabee to put into the gaping net. And again, I can't stress that part enough. Now with his feet under him and confidence fully intact, his focus is simple. I want to contribute to our wins any way I can do that, said Parekh, who was at his creative best early Friday with a series of offensive firsts. And a laser off the post. True. He, again, the puck luck. He could have had so many more points. I want to be a difference maker. He's starting to look every bit like one, which again is exactly what we want to see. A few more here. So, and for him to work hard on shoring up his defensive play, which he's doing, which is so important. A lot of the parts that I need to work on have improved a lot. And me and coach Ryan Huska are seeing the same things when it comes to that said Parekh. We've talked about a lot of game management stuff and a lot of stuff off the rush, more gaps and breakouts. And you can tell that they're definitely working on Parekh and his game is improving. We didn't expect him to be right away the player he was back in the OHL, but he is just, you know. Honestly, turning into that player at the professional level, which is great. Huska is under no illusion. Parekh is a finished product. He still has to learn how to handle the league's heavier players and continue improving defensively, but he definitely is improving defensively. There's no longer any question about his NHL status. He's not only just a full-time NHLer, he can be a difference maker, Huska said. He's an NHLer, a power play whiz, a young defenseman. The franchise can build around again. Title of the video, this is exactly what Calgary needed, was the franchise defenseman that they can build around. You'd just absolutely love to see it. Nothing but love for Parekh. So glad he's doing so good. And you can let me know, was this Zane Parekh's best NHL game? Yes, the breakout is absolutely happening. B, it's encouraging, but you need more. I don't know. It's got to be up there. I do think of the games where he scored some nice goals, especially like that last one against LA last year. But overall, that may have been his best game in the NHL. And I would find it hard to argue with that one. Now, let's get into the comment of the day to wrap up this video, as we love to do here on the channel. Comes from yesterday's video, of course. And this is a good one here. Uh, from Mr. Something, CR Perp or something. I don't know. Either way, he says, I hope the best for Hubie, but in reality, any news on Hubie is kind of meaningless considering that the odds of returning from this kind of surgery is quite low. It would be nice if he returned and became a solid player again, but I honestly think he should probably retire and be placed on LTIR. And it's, it's tough because there were definitely different, you know, sentiments within the fan base with that report of Huberto potentially coming back. Pretty soon, a lot of people were thinking, yeah, this is great. Maybe he'll be so good with these young guys, or maybe he needs some of these scores. He could play with grit and set him up, stuff like that. And there are different options. And this one may be a little bit more of a pessimistic one, but still positive, of course, hoping for the best. But it is something tough to come back from, and we'll just see what happens with Huberto. But I don't know, if that's a chapter that does close with the Flames, it's really sad how it went. One of the worst chapters you can think for a player who was really, really good at one point. But, you know, at the end of the day, it is what it is. And of course, we just wish the best for him. 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.