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Sergei Belski / USA Today Sports

Remember the Flame: Lance Bouma

Originally posted on Flamesnation | By Ryley Delaney | Last updated Dec 27, 2024 12:00 PM ET

Do you remember Lance Bouma?

Every week, we’ll look at a forgotten Calgary Flames player in the weekly series “Remember the Flame.” Of course, the player has to have played some significant games for the Flames – at least a full season. Each week, I’ll put each Flames season (since moving to Calgary) in the Wheel of Names. This week, it landed on the 2014-15 season, one of the more exciting seasons in recent years.

The player that immediately stood out to me was Lance Bouma. He was drafted by the Flames in the third round of the 2008 draft and played five seasons with the Vancouver Giants of the Western Hockey League. His career-high came in his final season, where he scored 14 goals and 43 points in 57 games.

Bouma played a season with the Abbotsford Heat in the American Hockey League, scoring 12 goals and 20 points in 61 games and even made his National Hockey League debut the same season, picking up an assist in 16 games. The 2011-12 season saw him play 31 games with the Heat, scoring three goals and six points, along with 27 games in the NHL where he had a goal and three points in 27 games.

The 2013-14 season saw Bouma become a regular for the Flames, playing 78 games with five goals and 15 points, along with 41 penalty minutes. Bouma’s 2014-15 season was his career-best, as he scored 16 goals and 34 points in 78 games as the rebuilding Flames surprisingly made it to the postseason, defeating the Vancouver Canucks.

Unfortunately, that was the high point of his career, as he never reached 16 goals in a season at any point in his career again. With that being said, he stuck around in the NHL for three more seasons, two with the Flames. In 2015-16, he scored two goals and seven points in 44 games. The year after, Bouma played 61 games with three goals and seven points. Before the 2017-18 season, Bouma signed with the Chicago Blackhawks, where he scored three goals and nine points in 53 games.

Bouma’s final season in the National Hockey League was in 2017-18, heading to Europe to play with the National League’s Geneve Servette in Switzerland. The forward played just three games there and missed most of the season with a knee injury. He returned to North America on a professional tryout for the Los Angeles Kings, playing 57 games with their AHL team where he scored 10 goals and 20 points.

Since the 2020-21 season, Bouma has played in Sweden for IK Oskarshamn, Malmö Redhawks, and Linköping HC. The latter is the team he currently plays for and he’s scored one goal in 21 games. Bouma’s career-best year in Sweden was in 2021-22 with the Redhawks, where he scored nine goals and 24 points.

All in all, Bouma’s production during the 2014-15 season helped the rebuilding Flames make the postseason. However, his career in the NHL was derailed because of injuries and a lack of production.

This article first appeared on Flamesnation and was syndicated with permission.

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