May 15, 2021 / 251 Comments / Sports

Friends, we’re into the short strokes of a regular season that will not result in a playoff appearance for the Calgary Flames. But with the post-season out of reach, another thing is in the works: likely NHL debuts for a few up-and-coming Flames.

With players like Matthew Phillips and Adam Ruzicka waiting in the wings, let’s look back at the 26 players who have made their NHL debuts since Brad Treliving became Flames general manager back in 2014.

F Josh Jooris [Oct. 17, 2014]
Early season injury replacement, stayed the rest of the season.

F Micheal Ferland [Oct. 31, 2014]
Early season injury replacement, stayed most of the rest of the season. (He bounced back to the AHL a couple times, but largely stuck around.) Ended up making the team full-time the following season.

F David Wolf [Jan. 31, 2015]
Mid-season injury replacement.

F Emile Poirier [Feb. 24, 2015]
Mid-season injury replacement.

D John Ramage [Apr. 11, 2015]
D Brett Kulak [Apr. 11, 2015]
F Sam Bennett [Apr. 11, 2015]
The Flames were playoff bound and Ramage and Kulak were short-term call-ups to give some veterans a night off. Bennett was brought in after his junior team was eliminated and played the remainder of the playoffs, too.

D Jakub Nakladal [Feb. 9, 2016]
Mid-season injury replacement on the third pairing.

F Garnet Hathaway [Feb. 29, 2016]
Mid-season injury replacement on the fourth line. He ended up making the team full-time the following season.

D Patrick Sieloff [Apr. 9, 2016]
D Oliver Kylington [Apr. 9, 2016]
F Turner Elson [Apr. 9, 2016]
This was another Game 82 slew of call-ups, as the Flames shut down some veterans early and gave a handful of AHLers a game as a reward. Kylington ended up pushing for NHL time a couple seasons later.

F Matthew Tkachuk [Oct. 12, 2016]
Made team out of camp. Eventually carved out a role alongside Mikael Backlund on a checking line by mid-season. He turned out okay.

F Mark Jankowski [Nov. 28, 2016]
Mid-season injury replacement on the fourth line. He ended up making the team full-time the following season.

G Jon Gillies [Apr. 6, 2017]
Late season call-up as injury replacement, started the game. (The team was playoff bound anyway so game result wasn’t a big deal.)

G David Rittich [Apr. 8, 2017]
Late season call-up as injury replacement, played in relief of Brian Elliott. (The team was playoff bound anyway so game result wasn’t a big deal.) He ended up taking over as full-time back-up midway through the following season after Eddie Lack faltered in the role.
D Rasmus Andersson [Apr. 8, 2017]
Andersson had been called up on Mar. 10 and spent a month practicing with the team and learning from the veterans before he received his NHL debut in the final game of the season. He ended up pushing for full-time NHL work over the next few seasons.

F Dillon Dube [Oct. 3, 2018]
D Juuso Valimaki [Oct. 3, 2018]
Made team out of training camp. Dube stayed the rest of the season, while Valimaki suffered an injury mid-season and went to the AHL to get his swagger back.

F Ryan Lomberg [Jan. 25, 2018]
Mid-season injury replacement on fourth line.

F Morgan Klimchuk [Feb. 19, 2018]
Mid-season injury replacement on fourth line. Nearly got crushed by Zdeno Chara.

F Spencer Foo [Mar. 31, 2018]
Late season call-up. Played a handful of games, primarily in the top six. (The team wasn’t in the playoffs, so it was a chance to see if Foo could hang at the NHL level in an offensive role.)

D Alexander Yelesin [Feb. 12, 2020]
Mid-season injury replacement – they had a couple defensemen missing – on the third pairing.

D Connor Mackey [Feb. 13, 2021]
Rotated into third pairing (replacing Nikita Nesterov) as part of early-season audition before AHL started up.

F Glenn Gawdin [Feb. 20, 2021]
Mid-season injury replacement for Derek Ryan on fourth line.

G Artyom Zagidulin [Feb. 25, 2021]
Garbage time relief appearance in blowout loss. (Was backup due to injury to Jacob Markstrom.)

Man, a lot of these players debuted in February…

Which prospects do you hope make their NHL debuts over the final three games of the season? Sound off in the comments!

251 thoughts on “Flames making NHL debuts under Brad Treliving”

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *