Quote:
Originally Posted by Niemo
To elaborate, I don’t think there is room for a Coronato or Stromgren to start in the NHL assuming Pelletier is prioritized due to waiver eligibility. This isn’t even taking Hunt and Duehr into account. Assuming that Pelletier starts in the bigs and the Flames eventually trade Mantha, Kuzmenko, Rooney at least and a small possibility of Coleman, most the guys will be cooking in the AHL for half the season - which may be ok.
Defense is even tougher. The top 6 seems settled (some combination of):
Weegar - Andersson
Bean - Miromanov
Bahl - Pachal
Hanley
It makes no sense to rush Parekh or Hunter B.
Solovyov is ready for bottom pairing duties right now.
Kuznetsov should be the no6 (sink or swim situation).
Grushnikov and Poirier are very close but could use another 1/2 season in the AHL to dominate in ‘their own craft’.
It wouldn’t hurt Hunter B. to have 1 full AHL year.
Basically, in 2026, we have 6 D kids that are “ready”.
Hanley is the only one dropping off for sure. I hope we get a haul for Rasmus. I’ll be interested to see how the rest of the D look this year other than Weegar.
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Yeah, for a rebuilding team, things are pretty tight when it comes to open roster positions.
I can see Hanley being an up and down player, like a Gilbert, DeSimone, or Oesterle. But still, that is only the #7 spot. I can see Solovyov stealing that spot out of camp.
We'll have to see how Pachal does. I thought he played really good for a waiver pick up and is relatively young still. I didn't even really know about him before the Flames acquired him, so I don't know if maybe he just had a new team bump, and maybe turns back into waiver material. He could still be a guy that moves up and down.