Much more was expected from the Calgary Flames last season, but they have an opportunity for a fresh start to rectify that this season. Everybody is still waiting on decisions from some of the upcoming unrestricted free agents (UFA) next summer, but with or without them, the Flames have to move forward and the remaining members of the team must persevere. The team didn’t struggle as a whole; some players had strong seasons, but others didn’t. The players we are going to look at here are wild cards that might make or break the Flames’ season depending on if they show up or struggle again.
Jonathan Huberdeau
Jonathan Huberdeau is the star on the Flames despite what events occurred last season. He and former head coach Darryl Sutter did not see eye to eye, and it drastically impacted his performance. While I don’t believe he will reach 115 points in a season again just because of how differently the Flames and Florida Panthers play the game, it is completely within reason for him to shoot back up to a point-per-game player. That is at least what the Flames need from him. It will not only help ease any concern about giving him $10.5 million average annual value (AAV) for the next eight years, but it will boost others around him at even strength and on the power play.
Huberdeau is and will be one of the leaders in the dressing room. Before he got to Calgary and nothing went right last season, he put together four consecutive point-per-game seasons, scoring 103 goals and 346 points in 286 games. He’s also averaged 19 minutes of ice time per game over the past five seasons, so his usage was just wrong for the Flames. With a new coach in charge, the 55 points in 79 games and a sub-17:00 average time on ice (ATOI) will surely shoot up. If it doesn’t, and it may not right away, the Flames are in trouble and will really be needing help from others in the lineup. That didn’t work out last season, so there’s no reason to believe it will again with an arguably weaker team.
Jacob Markstrom
Just like Huberdeau, the 2021-22 season was the peak of Jacob Markstrom’s career. But instead of playing for a different team and struggling when coming to Calgary, Markstrom had already dealt with that the year prior. It’s difficult enough for players to maintain a point-per-game pace season after season, but it is much more difficult for a goaltender to put up stellar numbers in consecutive seasons. There are more variables such as new players, lines, and defence combos. Chemistry can be thrown off as well as penalty-kill efficiency. In the Flames’ case, they lost a few key players.
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Matthew Tkachuk, Johnny Gaudreau, Erik Gudbranson, and Oliver Kylington all left or didn’t play. The line that had the top-three plus/minus players in the league was broken up, and not slightly either. Elias Lindholm, although a strong two-way player, was the only one left. The forward group didn’t have great chemistry and Nazem Kadri and Huberdeau didn’t work well with what Sutter preached, while the defence appeared weaker. There isn’t a strong chance that Markstrom will return to form from 2021-22 where he went 37-15-9 with a 2.22 goals-against average (GAA), .922 save percentage (SV%), and nine shutouts, but he has to give the Flames more than a 2.92 GAA and .892 SV% from last season. The Flames do have Dan Vladar at the moment and Dustin Wolf waiting for his shot, so the help is within reach, but Markstrom isn’t going anywhere and he is the starter.
Andrew Mangiapane
Andrew Mangiapane‘s drop-off in goals was noticeable, but not a complete surprise. Since he entered the league, his shooting percentage has been well above average overall, and over the two seasons prior to last season, it was very high, bound to come down to Earth. Excluding 2022-23, his career shooting percentage is 17.1 percent. In just 2020-21 and 2021-22, his shooting percentage was 19.2 percent. It was 9.3 percent last season. Considering the league-wide shooting percentage was its highest since 2005-06, pucks just weren’t finding the back of the net for Mangiapane.
Since the Flames looked different up front, Mangiapane, like many others, were moving around the lineup trying to get chemistry with someone. Tyler Toffoli stuck on the top line last season, but with him gone, Mangiapane has the opportunity to take on that role. This will not only shoot his ice time up, he will be playing with better players consistently and getting better scoring chances. He averaged 28 goals per full season over the three seasons prior to the last one and scored an impressive 35 goals in 2021-22. He dropped to just 17 goals in 82 games. A 9.3 shooting percentage is very low for him, so I expect that to rise a bit at the very least. He’s not going to get a much better opportunity and his goals will make a huge difference this season, both in boosting his line at 5-on-5 and getting the power play back to a good spot.
Not only are these three players wild cards that could make or break the Flames’ season, the team itself is a big wild card. Who knows just yet how they will perform or adapt to the new changes to the team this season. It will be something to pay attention to for sure.
