Flames prospects you should expect to see at training camp

Gang, we’re about three weeks away from the Calgary Flames returning to the ice for their annual prospects training camp. But because of the new NCAA rules, things are going to be a little bit different than what we’ve seen in the past.

Nothing has been announced quite yet regarding the precise form that prospects camp is going to take. Right now, the expectation is that the Flames will be playing a couple prospect games, probably against Edmonton, as they have in past years when they weren’t participating in the Penticton Young Stars Classic tournament.

In past years, pretty much anybody who participated in development camp in July came back for September’s prospects camp, aside from the handful of players with commitments in college or Europe. But since the number of prospects who will be tied up with school or European obligations is pretty high, this year’s camp will look a bit different.

Usually the Flames bring around 25 players to camp – three goalies, eight blueliners and 14 forwards.

If we’re using the “everyone from development camp who isn’t busy elsewhere” rule, here’s how things would look:

• Goalies Owen Say and Arsenii Sergeev – it also seems reasonable that Medicine Hat’s Jordan Switzer, who attended development camp on a try-out, could also appear
• Defencemen Etienne Morin, Axel Hurtig and Zayne Parekh
• Forwards Andrew Basha, Aydar Suniev, Jacob Battaglia, Carter King, Hunter Laing and Matvei Gridin

So… that’s way fewer players than they would require to put together lineups for a pair of prospects games. So the Flames will probably need to fill our their roster with either additional try-out players, bringing in prospects they didn’t have at development camp, or a mix of both.

While anybody that didn’t spend 50 games on the NHL roster last season would be eligible to bring to this camp, the Flames have historically only brought their youngest prospects to this camp, and when they’ve had to fill camp rosters out they’ve opted to bring players still on their entry-level deals.

There are six players on their ELCs that weren’t at development camp: William Strömgren, Sam Honzek, Lucas Ciona, Parker Bell, Hunter Brzustewicz and Artem Grushnikov. We suspect that some of them may get the call, but we’ll see which ones. Even if they brought everybody on ELCs to prospects camp, they would still need to add some players on try-outs, so we’re bound to see some surprises when the camp roster is announced in early September.