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CALGARY — The 'Farewell Season' at the Saddledome is a pivotal one for the Calgary Flames.
Calgary Flames forward Samuel Honzek celebrates his goal with teammate Mikael Backlund during third period NHL hockey action against the Toronto Maple Leafs, in Toronto, Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette - The Canadian PressPlayoff expectations remain modest after missing the post-season four straight years, but the pressure is on to progress and generate buzz ahead of a move across the street to the $1.2-billion Scotia Place next season. The Flames start their 2026-27 regular season and the team's 44th at the Saddledome at home Thursday to the Young players with NHL experience will be counted on to accelerate both pace of play on the ice and the rebuild that began when it became clear a team that had missed the playoffs by a hair in 2025 wasn't going to get that close in 2026.led the Flames in points last season with 45, including 18 goals.
Calgary looks for an offensive bump from the 23-year-old, and 25-year-old forwardMore tenacity and execution in front of opposing nets was the message coming out of training camp.
"We have to make it much more difficult on the opposing goaltender to make saves," Flames head coach Ryan Huska said. "There's certain situations, even when we have players that are in Grade A scoring-chance areas, if there's nobody in a goaltenders' eyes, nine out of 10 times they're making that save.
"The goalies are just too good, so you have to distract them, you've got to disrupt their flow, their rhythm, and that means you have be willing to go to the net much harder than we had in the past. We've done a lot of talking on it.
"The Flames either retained or acquired a few veterans to shepherd the young cohort toward the goal of playoff contention.signed a contract extension to 2028, he said it was important to him to still be a Flame when the team moves to Scotia Place. "We know what people think of us, but inside this room we're still believing in ourselves and we want to go out every night and prove people wrong and be a hard team to play against and trying to be in the mix of the playoffs at the end of the season," the 37-year-old Swedish centre said.
"I would love to finish off the Saddledome with a playoff, going into playoffs having a big game late in the season clinching playoffs, that would be really cool. ""There's definitely a group of really young players that are franchise-pillar pieces," Strome observed.
"There's a very unique middle-aged group of guys that are trying to figure out kind of where they are in the league and there's group of older guys that are kind of like here to provide some stability, and you want to play as long as you can, so it's a good mix. Power play quarterback Expect to see Parekh and Nemec quarterbacking Calgary's power play with internal competition for the top unit.
Only the"We have a luxury now that we have two guys on the back end that if one is really going one night, they keep going, and if he stays with it, we'll just let him run with it," Huska said.
"If you're having an off night, it's easy for us to go to the other guy now because he's going to want that role as well. " "Hubie is a guy that we will miss to start the year because he brings a lot of different intangibles to our room both on and off the ice, but we have a good group of older players" Huska said. "I like the leadership group that's going to start to form here.
We have a really good group that will pull in the right direction. "
Mikael Backlund The Canadian Press The Flames Saddledome NHL Ryan Huska Toronto Maple Leafs Samuel Honzek Simon Nemec Zayne Parekh
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