Friends, this hopefully won’t be a controversial statement, but Calgary Flames prospect Zayne Parekh is really good at hockey.

The Flames selected Parekh in the first round, ninth overall, in the 2024 NHL Draft. And when you run the clock back to the start of Parekh’s draft season, 2023-24, he’s racked up a ton of accolades and achievements.

Here’s how Parekh’s last two seasons have gone:

• Captured a gold medal with Canada’s under-18 team at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup
• Scored 33 goals and 96 points, both the most by an OHL defenceman in 2023-24
• Won a Memorial Cup championship
• Named the OHL and CHL Defenceman of the Year
• Scored 33 goals and 107 points, both the most by an OHL defenceman in 2024-25
• Made NHL debut with the Flames and scored his first NHL goal

Possibly the only thing missing from that laundry list was a trip to the World Juniors. Parekh attended last summer’s World Junior Summer Showcase, but only attended Canada’s winter selection camp as an injury replacement and didn’t make the team.

Fast forward to this summer, and Parekh is back as the World Junior Summer Showcase and poised to potentially grab a roster spot. Well, if he’s available during the winter holidays. Parekh chatted with TSN’s Mark Masters as part of a fun feature on Parekh’s friendship with fellow OHL blueliner Sam Dickinson.

Parekh had an interesting response to Masters asking what it would mean to him if he was wearing the maple leaf at the World Juniors:

“It’d be awesome. Hopefully I’m playing in Calgary around that time. So, I guess my future’s kinda up in the air right now. My goal is to play in Calgary for the whole year. As weird as it sounds, best-case scenario I might not be playing in that tournament if I’m fortunate enough to be selected. But anytime you can wear that maple leaf it’s an honour, and you kind of feel like a little kid again.”

Parekh is an excellent OHL defenceman. He has very little left to accomplish at the junior level, and he seems really focused on making the Flames roster out of training camp and sticking around the whole season. And while he would be a huge asset to the Canadian World Junior team.

But there’s a decent chance he could be a pretty valuable player for the Flames, too, if he makes the NHL roster.

We’ll see how it all plays out.