Kadri, Huberdeau and Lindholm made the grade among plenty of eyebrow-raising placements
A trio of Flames players were included on ESPN’s Top 100 player predictions for the season.
While the list deserves plenty of scrutiny and could be the source of great debates — for example, Chicago defenseman Seth Jones is ranked 52nd, ahead of Quinn Hughes, Josh Morrissey and other bigger impact blue liners, and Evgeni Malkin is not even on the list — the Flames chosen and their placements is pretty fair.
Center Nazem Kadri was listed 86th, down from 54 last season. The victim of unreasonable expectations following his career-best season in Colorado in 2021-22, Kadri is off to a slow start, with no points in the first three games, but it will be no surprise if he delivers a 25-goal, 60-point campaign.
Left wing Jonathan Huberdeau, Calgary’s highest paid player, is listed 70th, well down from 15th spot last season. After last season’s 60-point drop from the previous campaign, Huberdeau is a good bet to be a point-per-game player again, although the Flames and their fans have every right to expect more for $10.5 million per season.
Elias Lindholm is slated at 62, up from the 76th spot to start the 2022-23 season. It may be a little low considering how much Lindholm’s defensive play is under-stated while he is also a point-per-game player. The big questions surrounding the pending unrestricted free-agent, top-line center is whether he will re-sign with the Flames, what the price will be and whether the club will have the fortitude to trade him at the deadline if he is not willing to stay on a long-term deal.
It would be curious to see what if any consideration Calgary’s top three defensemen in Rasmus Andersson, Noah Hanifin and MacKenzie Weegar received.
The tough part of the list from a Flames prospective is the former players on it. Tyler Toffoli is 65th, while Dougie Hamilton is 49th, Johnny Gaudreau is 39th and Matthew Tkachuk was placed 11th.