5 Things – Flames vs. Ducks

1. Youth Gone Wild

One, three, and even 5 (or extra) years down the highway, the informal Flames historia may flip to a 3rd-interval second from Tuesday as the beginning of one thing particular.

On paper, it was a powerplay objective that tied Game 71 of the 2025-26 season at 2-2. But in actuality, the objective was a lot extra.

Zayne Parekh’s first objective on Scotiabank Saddledome ice, assisted by Matvei Gridin and Matt Coronato. Three key items of the Flames’ future and – fairly clearly – integral cogs within the group’s current-day success, too.

Gridin joked publish-recreation that he is hopeful he and Parekh can hyperlink up on performs for the subsequent 15 years, however that objective – that second – may simply be the spark that resonates within the two rookies’ minds.

They belong right here.

For Parekh, it has been a season of studying. Playing in opposition to males for the primary time after a dominant OHL profession, the 19-12 months-outdated is actually beginning to discover his stride within the NHL recreation.

And that is not simply based mostly on an eye fixed take a look at, his Head Coach figures Parekh is studying on the fly fairly properly, too.

Even if till Tuesday, he hadn’t lit the lamp but this season.

“He just needs to remember that he’s doing a lot of great things away from the puck. He’s learning how to play the game at the NHL level,” Ryan Huska mentioned of Parekh’s development. “He’s a smaller defenseman, that is a talented man and it is laborious to interrupt in as a 19-12 months-outdated.

“I think he’s doing an excellent job, and a lot of that pressure, I feel like, gets put on him from outside sources at times. What he is doing, though, is learning to be more of a complete player and I think he’s done an excellent job at that. The points are going to come for him, that is a matter of time. It’s starting to feel comfortable, and figuring out how to play in the NHL.”

Gridin, who could be enjoying at a few 40-level tempo had he spent your complete season on the NHL degree, is quick turning into one of many Flames’ premier offensive threats.

And for Huska, the younger Russian has the self-confidence (at the moment, boatloads of it) to let his recreation do a variety of the speaking.

(*5*) Huska mentioned of Gridin’s latest kind. “He’s all the time received an excellent little bit of swagger that, as coaches, we fairly get pleasure from.

“Not a lot of young guys have what he’s got, and I just feel like him understanding the game a little bit better now is putting him in positions to actually finish, and generate some offense.”

Those positions – as evidenced by Tuesday’s win over the Kings – now embody powerplay time at key moments.

And why not? With 11 video games left within the common season, there isn’t any time like the current for the long run to strut its stuff.

Real-time outcomes, like Parekh’s first profession powerplay objective, make for particular moments.

For Huska, these moments are constructing blocks, confidence-boosters.

And for his new, younger core, they’re customary-setters, too.

“At that moment in the game, when we’re thinking about winning games and trying to maintain, establish, push a standard that we want to have, you have to find a way to score that goal,” he mentioned. “Happy for Zayne.

“I know he’s probably been waiting a long time for that, but really happy for the powerplay in that moment.”