Reaching the midway point of the pre-season has Calgary zeroing in on its opening day roster
Having reached the middle of the pre-season schedule, the Calgary Flames kicked training camp into another gear.
Players were broken into two groups for Thursday’s practices at WinSport, and there was an obvious distinction between them.
The first collection of players consisted of all the non-injured players on one-way contracts. Of the forwards, only Matt Coronato and Dryden Hunt hold two-way contracts.
Meanwhile, the defensemen were the six healthy veterans — MacKenzie Weegar, Noah Hanifin, Rasmus Andersson, Chris Tanev, Nikita Zadorov and Jordan Oesterle — with prospects Ilya Solovyov and Nick DeSimone joining them.
The goalies were number-one netminder Jacob Markstrom and Dan Vladar.
It is possible someone from the second group that hit the ice can overtake one of those depth players, but it sure looks close to an opening-night roster.
“You can feel the pace and the energy,” Hanifin said after the session. “Guys out there were loud and chatting out there. I think the excitement is now hitting us and how close the season really is. It’s that time of year you get really excited to go.”
The Flames next face the Edmonton Oilers Friday night in pre-season, and have three more games after that before deciding the final roster for the Oct. 11 opener against the Winnipeg Jets.
Thursday’s session was all about power-play work and then three-on-three action, a pair of areas the Flames must improve upon for a legitimate playoff shot.
The first power-play united consisted of Eilas Lindholm, Jonathan Huberdeau, Yegor Sharangovich, Nazem Kadri and Andersson, while the second was newly named captain Mikael Backlund, Andrew Mangipane, Dillon Dube, Hanifin and Weegar.
As well, it appears coach Ryan Huska wants to build consistency for three-on-three overtime play, and had a trio of groups work together: Backlund, Kadri, Hanifin; Huberdeau, Dube, Weegar; and Sharangovich, Lindholm, Andersson.
