Flames prospects Zayne Parekh and Jacob Battaglia named to OHL all-star teams

Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but a pair of Calgary Flames prospects have been named to their league’s year-end all-star teams. On Friday, the Ontario Hockey League announced their all-star and all-rookie teams for the 2024-25 campaign. Flames prospects Zayne Parekh and Jacob Battaglia were among the players named.

Parekh (of the Saginaw Spirit) was named to the OHL’s first all-star team, along with Kitchener goaltender Jackson Parsons, London defenceman Sam Dickinson, and forwards Michael Misa (Saginaw), Liam Greentree (Windsor) and Nick Lardis (Brantford).

Battaglia (of the Kingston Frontenacs) was named to the OHL’s third all-star team, along with London goaltender Austin Elliott, defencemen Luca Marelli and Ben Danford (both Oshawa) and forwards Calum Ritchie and Beckett Sennecke (Oshawa). Yeah, the third team is primarily Oshawa Generals.

A first-round pick by the Flames in 2024, ninth overall, Parekh was a first-team all-star last season (2023-24) and first-team all-rookie the season before that (2022-23). Battaglia, a second-round Flames selection in 2024, is an all-star for the first time.

Both players had superb offensive seasons in 2024-25:

• Parekh finished fifth in OHL scoring – first among defencemen – with 33 goals and 74 assists for 107 points, becoming the first blueliner in modern OHL history to have back-to-back 30-goal seasons and the first OHL blueliner to break three digits for points since Ryan Ellis did it in 2011-12. He even made his NHL debut in the final game of the Flames’ season, scoring a pretty sweet deflection goal on the play.
• Battaglia finished 11th in OHL scoring with 40 goals and 50 assists for 90 points. He didn’t make as much history as Parekh, but he made a huge step forward offensively from his draft year, where he had 31 goals and 65 points.

Both Parekh and Battaglia have signed their entry-level contracts with the Flames. They’re both 2006-born players who will be playing their 19-year-old seasons in 2025-26 and aren’t eligible to play in the American Hockey League next season. That said, the general set of expectations for next season are for Parekh to push to make the Flames’ NHL roster out of training camp and for Battaglia to go back for his 19-year-old season in the OHL and be one of the best offensive producers in that league with Kingston.