[sureLoss]

http://calgaryherald.com/sports/hock...or-nhl-combine

But their early scouting report, before and after the Knights performance at the Memorial Cup, on Tkachuk — a 6-foot-1, 195-pound versatile forward who is sitting sixth on the International Scouting Services top-30 rankings — is good.

Really good.

“His compete, he plays a hard game, he plays in the hard areas,” Button said. “He’s a finisher. A playmaker. I’ve seen him play centre this year. He’s a solid, solid all-around player. And he’s got skill. He’s not the prettiest skater and not the guy that’s going to get up and down the ice and look pretty doing it.

“But he’s going to get into the trenches.”

And surely the Flames are not alone in their evaluation of the 18-year-old son of 19-year league veteran Keith Tkachuk.

So, are they crossing their fingers that he’ll still be around at No. 6?

“I wouldn’t say that,” Button said. “We’ll put our guys in order and we’re going to go off that list. Assuming our evaluations are the same as the top-three teams. Then there’s the next six or seven guys. It’s not just Matthew (Tkachuk) … there’s other guys we’re looking at and that’s what we’re trying to do right now.

The Flames scouts — 13 of them in total — have gathered background information, made phone calls and talked to schools, coaches and general managers to develop an internal database on each player so they are well-armed when they head to next week’s combine, which goes from May 30 to June 4.

In total, they have 94 players on their list.

“Every guy on that board that is going to the combine, we’ll talk to,” Button said. “Everyone on our list, we’ll talk to at some point. We know what questions we want to ask them and we have information we can give to (strength and conditioning coach) Ryan VanAsten so he can watch kids at the combine. Things like his frame, how hard he works. Based on all the background work, we’ll come up with a list we can follow up on.”