The Flames have a MAJOR decision to make...

The Calgary Flames have a big decision to make with Kevin Ball unfortunately out for this season. You would think next up is Hunter Brzustewicz, but Craig Conroy may have something else up his sleeve. We know what the fanbase wants, but what will actually happen? We're going to get to all that more in this video, but first I want to welcome you to Flames Digest, I'm Mark Griffith. If you're new around here and you love the Flames, make sure you subscribe so you can stay up to date on all the latest news, updates, reports, and rumors revolving around your Calgary Flames. We would love to welcome you to the Flames Digest family, don't worry, we will get into some Brzustewicz talk, but first... We have something even more exciting. We got to talk about last night's game as the Flames played one of the most exciting games they've had all season, a 4-3 overtime victory over the Philadelphia Flyers. The Saddle Dome was rocking on a Sunday night, probably the loudest it has been this season. Absolutely excellent. We had a little bit of everything. We had Zane Parekh, you know, deciding to become prime. Kale McCarr, because Tate McRae was in attendance, but what a filthy goal from him. Absolutely excellent. We had Whitecloud scoring his first goal as a Flame. We had Farabee finally scoring on a breakaway. It's about time, and he's been so hot. I think he has six. Goals in his last six home games. And then obviously Coronado with a beautiful, beautiful OT winner. As we get into the box score here, at least the players that got on the score sheet, it's a lengthy one for the Flames. They keep that streak alive of winning games when they score four-plus goals. You love to see it. But Cooley, he was back, and he was also fired up when Coronado scored in overtime after his big stretching before the additional frame there. But he makes 31 saves on 34 shots, so three goals against. But a .912 save percentage. Above 900 is all you can really ask for in today's NHL, and it was excellent. Already went over all the goal scorers, but Farabee, Whitecloud, Coronado, and Parekh. Sharky got a couple of assists. We had Sunyaev get an assist as well as Pospisil, Gridden, Nemetz. Gridden and Nemitz were on the OT winner, of course. And Kuznetsov all picking up points on the night, which is exactly what you love to see. I'll start by highlighting Cooley once again. A little bit further into the stats here. Yeah, he gave up three goals, but he did enough for the win. And it was just excellent to see in his return from injury play so well, especially I'd say in the second period when, you know, the Flames didn't look all that great for... A lot of the period, to be quite honest with you, he stood in there and made saves when it mattered, which was excellent to see. So if you go start by start here, he has been so good lately. I mean, that one against Edmonton, you almost just don't count it. But yeah, his goals saved above expected was 1.2 last night, which is really, really good. So very happy that he had another amazing start. He's getting just the spotlight all over the league. We had that goalie from Pittsburgh speak out about it. But Cooley himself had another ba- Banger of an interview, to be honest. No generational quotes in this one, I'd say, after the game. But yeah, he still had some great things to say, saying a lot of people are reaching out to him about how, you know, honestly, a lot of... goalies do agree with his mindset he's just the one saying it which is hilarious but the key thing for me statistically for Cooley is that he is so much better well not so much better but he's better than your league average goalie at saving the high danger and medium danger chances he's actually a little bit lower on the low dangers the flames it's a stat I pulled up quite a while ago but they give up a lot more low danger chances and goals as a result which is very interesting Probably better now with the better team. team defense and goaltending that we've gotten over the past few weeks here. But I'm so glad to know that Cooley's better at saving those high danger ones. That's a stat that, you know, Dustin Wolf. Over the past few years has been so much higher than other goalies as well. Kind of just goes to show that the Flames do give up a lot of dangerous chances, but good to know that our goalies do obviously save quite a few of those as well. Again, really wanted to highlight Zane Parekh as well. He did just get the one goal, but he was just electric again. The confidence is oozing out of this guy right now. It's so good to see him play. His game, the game that made him the ninth overall pick when he just lit it up in the OHL. We got to see it at the World Juniors a bit last year and just so glad that he really is, you know. developing into the player that we absolutely thought he would be and that the player that he absolutely wants to be. But he had a block as well, a penalty in there. He had four shots on goal, which was great. We were talking about if only he could have the puck luck in that game against Anaheim. Well, he scored a beauty. What a release it was too. It was absolutely disgusting. But again, his ice time is going up. Now, part of that is because of the Kevin Ball injury, which again, unfortunate that Ball is hurt. But yeah, Parekh is seeing his ice time increase and his... His defensive game is so much better. So cannot be happier with how his development has been progressing this season. And he's just so much fun to watch. I think Flames fans are falling more and more in love with this team, as was evident by the crowd noise last night, but also just in general on social media and stuff. So many people love this guy. I have nothing but amazing words for Zane right now. Again, to highlight White Cloud, he got his first goal as a Flame. It was interesting. It almost looked like he looked to see if someone else tipped it or to see if it was really his goal or not. But he had an excellent game as well. Obviously, the D pairings were a little bit fluky or funky, I should say, without Ball in there, mostly playing with Middleton. Middleton almost looks maybe hurt or something. I don't know what's up with that guy. But Yeah, the line combos changed like crazy throughout this game too, which was, you know, I think a good call actually by Huska. It ended up making very exciting hockey. But here's the goal itself from where it was. It was in the second period. Made the game 2-2. The Flames actually came back from, I guess, three deficits in this game. It was one of those crazy games that goes 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 3-3. And then 4-3, of course, we were able to get that one. Another guy to obviously highlight has been just the best Flame lately. And that is, of course, Joel Farabee. Just outstanding. He gets yet another goal on home ice against his former team, the team that did not want him. It was mostly Tortorella that did not want him. There's this, you know, awesome story that was told about how Farabee literally walked into Tortorella's office and asked to be put on the penalty kill. And Tortorella essentially said, hey, why don't you work on other things? And then obviously they got rid of him. But it still must have been awesome for him to finally score. Great goal as well. As if we pull it up here, it was tucked in, in tight. On the penalty kill as well, it was a shorthanded breakaway. And we've been saying all season, you know, how many breakaways does this guy not score? Well, he finally got one, which was great to see. He has been the offensive leader for the Flames so far this season. 17 points is actually, who saw that coming? 17 points this early in the season. I mean, last year at this time, we were probably lucky to have a player with five points, but he has been just absolutely excellent. You see all those green stats here, all those green bars. So good to see both goals and assists. And Ryan Pike here points out that since October 22nd, the Flames have played 10 games in 18 days. So a big workload. They're 6-3-1 in that stretch. And during this run, Joel Farabee leads the Flames with 7 goals and 12 points. So 12 points in the last 18 days is honestly very impressive for a team that wasn't expected to score all that much. So again, super thrilled with that. The winner here as well, if you missed it in overtime, it was a great three-on-one, awesome just goal. And again, that's probably the loudest the Dome has been all year on that game-winning goal. It was great to see with just under a minute left in the additional period, it was awesome. So if we pull up the standings now, I mean, again, it's still early in the season. Of course, we're in the playoff picture, but we're four points back right now, and it's... Who knows? It's still November. We have no idea what it's going to look like. But yeah, the Flames are hanging in there right now. 8-9-1, close to 500 hockey. Well, the kind of fake 500 we have with the loser points. But overall, just an outstanding game. I was pumped to talk about it. So I hope you guys are still excited about it as well. Now we can get into Bruce Stevich, or Brew as the good old nickname is, because... It's kind of the biggest decision, the next big decision the Flames need to make is so far they've been playing Nacho, they've been playing Hanley, they brought up Pahal, but is that the long-term solution here? Don't think it's what the Flames fans want. Conroy has some options, but one person here says Eric Francis is out to lunch saying it doesn't make sense to call up Brewstevich to have him sit in the press box. No, you call Brewstevich up and sit. Hanley. So you put Pahal back down. I mean, I think he requires waivers. Actually, that's only at a certain point. Depends how much he plays or how many days he's up. I should definitely make sure that's clear. But you can absolutely bring Brustevich up and play him. You don't have to bring him up to sit him because... Hanley deserved to play over Brustevich. There's, I mean, there's an argument for it, but it is interesting and it is crazy that Eric Francis was so adamant in that. Another person says, do the Flames go and trade for a defenseman with Ball out for the season? I know we're not trying to win this year, but you need to have someone solid back there when you have Nemetz and Parekh as offensive D-men that are trying to grow. And then puts out these lines of Middleton with Nemetz, Zane with Whitecloud, and then Kuz with Brustevich. I like that. I don't think you need to go out and trade someone. We also aren't really in a place We want to be trading more futures for defensemen. We already did enough of that with the Nemetz trade. So I kind of like that six in there. You know, Zane played great with Whitecloud last year. Kuz and Brustevich, they played a little bit. It's, I don't hate it. I'm okay with that rather than trading for someone. So Hunter's path to this opening right now. Bruce Stevich's path. So obviously last year, he split the season between the A and the NHL. He played 34 NHL games and got seven points. But back on November 2nd, of course, the day that we learned, or that doesn't say second, on November 9th, pardon me. me Well, that's today. This graphic isn't right. Apologies. But either way, Pahal was recalled with ball placed on the injury reserve. And then obviously this year, Brustevich has been playing in the A. He has seven points in 14 games. So pretty good. I think I personally would rather have Brustevich come up and at least you get to split some games again. Maybe Hanley gets in. Maybe Brustevich does. Maybe lean more towards Brustevich, to be honest, but he sounds like he's down to play with absolutely anyone. Now, this is a quote from back in October, but he said, I'm just trying to control what I can, but whoever I get paired up with, you just got to be ready for it. And that goes for both the AHL and the NHL for him, to be quite honest, but it sounds like he's absolutely ready. So how would we, you know, kind of define making a recall worthwhile for him? So he would absolutely need a regular place in the lineup, you'd think. Just calling him up and then doing what Eric Francis said, not good. And he also needs a partner who compliments his game. I don't hate having him with Kuznetsov, to be quite honest, or you can play him with Whitecloud and just swap him and Parekh. It doesn't really matter. There's also a clear plan for defensive responsibilities. I think he showed that he's a very complete overall NHL player last year. He's not just an offensive guy like he was in juniors. Yeah, an overall just solid player. And then you'd have to give him enough minutes to justify leaving his AHL role. He has a very high-end AHL role right now, playing some good minutes on the Wranglers, which is great, awesome for development. But if you're not coming in now to be an NHL player, are you ever gonna be an NHL player for this franchise? So there need to be enough minutes. You don't just only give them 10 minutes a game. So. What does it come down to again? What should Calgary do with Brustevich? You can feel free to let me know. Recall him and give him a regular role or just keep his major AHL minutes for now. And we'll figure out the rest later with this hole, this void that Kevin Ball has unfortunately left with that big injury. Now let's get into the comment of the day to wrap up this video as we'd love to do here on the channel comes from yesterday's video, of course, which again goes over the Kevin Ball news. But Zed Massier says the hockey universe has just blessed the tank, but feel awful for Ball. near perfect this year. He was having such a good year. You really feel for his development, to be quite honest, but also just everything else involved with a long-term injury, the pain, the rehabilitation, the mental toll that it takes on you. And obviously, you know, trying to play for your next contract and everything, but you'd say it blesses the tank. And then we win last night. It was against Philly. And I know Philly is the worst team in the Eastern Conference, but still, yeah, you would think it would help the tank and we give up more goals. We'll have to see on that part, but yeah. do feel awful for Ball no matter what. Thank you so much for watching this video. Please subscribe if you like what you saw here today and have a wonderful rest of your day.