The Calgary Flames are comically mismanaging their young players

This was supposed to be the season of youth. The year in which the Calgary Flames played their young players in bigger roles and started to get a read on what they had in the system. Zayne Parekh was ready to start in the NHL. Matt Coronato signed his big NHL deal and was expected to play top minutes. Both Connor Zary and Martin Pospisil were gearing up for another big season, and even big Adam Klapka was expected to take a step forward in his game.

Beyond the NHL, there was a hope that Sam Honzek would be in the NHL this season and would be joined by the likes of Rory Kerins, William Stromgren, Yan Kuznetsov, and potentially even Matvei Gridin.

However, 13 games in, the Flames have hardly given their young players a real shot. Coronato and Zary have both been in and out of the lineup and have been given marginal linemates. Parekh has languished on the third pairing with a rotating cast of partners. Let’s dive into each one.

Matt Coronato

When the Flames signed Coronato to a seven-year, $45 million contract, the expectation was that he would be playing top-line minutes this season and be given linemates who would allow him to be the sniper that the Flames were looking for when they drafted him in 2021.

Instead, Ryan Huska has scratched him once, played him with inconsistent linemates, and given him especially limited minutes. Coronato has only played with two sets of linemates for more than 20 minutes at 5v5 this season. He had 35 minutes with Nazem Kadri and Gridin to start the year and then spent just under 23 minutes with Blake Coleman and Mikael Backlund. Otherwise, he has bounced up and down the lineup, with pretty well everyone else on the team. Not a way to build success.

On top of that, for one of the team’s most expensive players and a key part of their future, Coronato has been playing extremely limited minutes. In the first eight games of the year, he was playing between 15 and 20 minutes per game, with a high of 21:49 against the Montreal Canadiens. However, in the last two games, he saw just 13:16 against the Winnipeg Jets and 11:21 against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Both are in the bottom five on the team. Were it not for power play time, Coronato would have had the lowest ice time on the team in the Leafs game.

It’s hard to understand why the Flames have not given Coronato a consistent look at the top of the lineup, or at least played him with linemates that would help him score. Instead, the Flames have let him languish on the fourth line with Ryan Lomberg and Justin Kirkland instead of letting him play with former elite playmaker Jonathan Huberdeau.

Even if you felt he was struggling—and he has—and even if you felt he wasn’t helping your team win, it’s incumbent on the coach of a rebuilding team to help the player find his feet and put him in a position to make an impact. Benching him, scratching him, and playing him in very limited minutes does not help him grow, build his confidence, or allow the team to see what they have in him. Frankly, his usage is a headscratcher.

Connor Zary

The Flames frankly have had issues getting Zary going at the NHL level. After spending two seasons turning Zary into a centreman, the Flames called him up and played him nearly completely on the wing. And while this was really effective on the one side of Kadri and Pospisil a couple of seasons back, the team played him with Backlund and Coleman for nearly all of last year. While great for his two-way game, it’s not helpful for his offensive game to grow.

Zary was a strong offensive talent in his draft year, putting up 86 points in 57 games with the Kamloops Blazers. He followed it up with seven points in nine games for the Stockton Heat before being sent back to the WHL. There is a ton of offensive talent in him that the team needs to unlock.

They just aren’t doing it. Between scrating him against the Ottawa Senators to shuffling him around the bottom six. While he did have some consistency in the last two games centring a line of Joel Farabee and Yegor Sharangovich, he only saw 11:43 of ice time the entire game. Farabee saw just over 16 minutes.

Like Coronato, Zary has had only two sets of consistent linemates this year. The aforementioned duo of Farabee and Sharangovich, and Klapka and Lomberg. Not the calibre of players that the former first-round pick should have. While it’s great to see him finally getting time at centre and maybe the Flames are trying to ease him into that role at the NHL level, it’s hard to see that working if he’s getting scratched in favour of Kirkland. The team really needs to set a clear path for Zary.

Zayne Parekh

Going into the season, it was expected that the Flames would allow Parekh to play in the NHL this season. After breaking numerous OHL records last year, it was clear he was too good for that league. However, the jump between the OHL and NHL is enormous, and it was expected that Parekh was going to go through a few bumps before he established himself as an elite offensive defenceman.

This was somehow lost along the way, and Parekh now sits at just nine games played, having sat out the last two. While he clearly hasn’t been the next Cale Makar this season, he has been one of the team’s better defencemen, sitting first in Corsi For %, first in goals for %, second in scoring chances for percent, and third in expected goals for percent. Yet for some reason, the Flames continue to hold him out of the lineup.

While it’s unlikely he goes back to junior, the Flames appear to be holding him out until he becomes eligible for an AHL conditioning stint before sending him to the World Juniors for Team Canada.

What are we doing here? Parekh is the best defensive prospect the Flames have had in two decades, and while he has just one assist and has had his moments, it has been no more than any of the other NHL defencemen the team has used this year.

The point of having a young defenceman in your roster is to play him a handful of minutes a night to get him used to the faster speed of the game. Play him in easier matchups where you can, give him power play opportunities, and socialize him to the team. Not playing him in a vital development year because you aren’t sure whether you want to burn a year of his ELC is a waste of his talent.

The Flames were awful two years ago, and were rewarded with Parekh, and now are not using his services. Instead, the team is playing Jake Bean and Joel Hanley, guys who on any other team would be sixth and seventh defencemen. Unless Ryan Huska is the tank commander that none of us are giving him credit for, the team needs to utilize Parekh much better.

Give Parekh the minutes he deserves, play him with a steady defensive partner, and allow him to play in low minutes where he can make mistakes. Encourage him to play the flashy offensive game that made him the star that he was in junior, and help him blossom into that player in the NHL.

Sam Honzek

Probably the most interesting name on the list is Honzek, who has been the most well-utilized player of the bunch. After a fine training camp, the Flames called him up and paired him immediately with Backlund and Coleman. In fairness to Huska, they are getting great performance out of him, and he scored his first NHL goal as well.

Honzek is going to be interesting to watch. He is undoubtedly performing, but the Flames have a long history of players who have done well alongside Backlund. The Backlund Bump is a real thing, and players from Andrew Mangiapane to Michael Frolik, Micheal Ferland, and beyond have benefited greatly from playing with the Flames’ captain.

Is Honzek good, or is he just good with Backlund? Is he the right player for that role, or would they be better served with someone else on the two-way line? This is an “if it ain’t broke” situation, but if and when it breaks, how the Flames fix it will be worth watching.

Adam Klapka

Sometimes we forget that Klapka is also a young player, having just turned 25. The Czech forward has done a great job on the team’s bottom line, but constantly feels like the odd man out among Kirkland and Lomberg. The latter has never been scratched regardless of performance.

In fairness to the Flames, Klapka probably is a replacement-level player, but it sends the wrong message when he is the player scratched constantly, while older players who perform equally poorly or worse are not.

The AHL players

The Flames have had some really good performances from their young AHL players to start the season, with Gridin an early standout with eight points already. Kerins has nine points to his name at this point in the season, while defenceman Hunter Brzustewicz has seven. The team has rotated through their young guys that are up so far, but several players could use an audition at the next level.

How the Flames choose to handle this as the season goes on is going to be interesting. It’s too early now to complain about a lack of call-ups so far, but whether Kerins ever earns his due or whether Gridin finds his way back to the big leagues after a really good start to the season in the NHL is going to be a story. The only player who has been called up so far is Dryden Hunt, but that was more of a precautionary call-up than a legitimate call-up.

What happens next?

The Flames have not done a great job of finding roles for their young players, and unfortunately, that pattern has continued this season. Except for the very insulated Honzek, the Flames have yet to find a real spot for Coronato, Zary, or Parekh that gives them a real opportunity and allows them to grow into the game.

Across the league, teams have given their young players ample opportunity to play and to make mistakes as they grow, and this has paid dividends in the future. The Flames are going the other way, and given how poorly this season has gone, there is no risk to giving their prospects more opportunity.