There is TOO MUCH going on with the Flames right now...

There are too many injury updates happening with the Calgary Flames right now, with a few players getting healthy again and kicking on the door of NHL returns. But with the good always comes the bad. If certain guys are ready to go, then who? gets removed. 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 to 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. There are two roads back here, so we're starting with the good. We have some positive news and it's stuff that we have covered a little bit here, but we'll get into the first one. Ryan Pike. Back on Wednesday said, Flames forwards Jonathan Huberdeau and Sam Honsik were full participants in Wednesday's, sorry, Wednesday's morning skate. Both remain on IR, which isn't true anymore, and there's no timeline quite yet in terms of when they'll both return, but it's safe to say they're both trending positively, which is great. Great. You want your players to be healthy. Obviously, Huberdeau has been out for a long time. Sam Honsik is a guy who has unfortunately just been through a lot of injury trouble so far in his NHL career. Last year, you know, got injured pretty early on and missed the rest of the year. And then this year, he's been out for quite a while now, quite a few weeks. But we do have an update as well. So Sam Honsik moves just made official by the Flames, which was actually a couple days ago now. He was activated from the IR and assigned. To the Wranglers, which is great. It sounds like he will be returning soon. But of course, that leads to the main question. Also, hey, the graphics look so different in today's videos. As you can tell, lots of updates. I mean, there's a new profile picture, despite it still in the bottom left corner or bottom left corner. Sorry, I'm mirrored. I forgot bottom left corner of the actual videos is still the old logo, which I love. I love both of them. Graphics are going to look a little bit different in this one too and just moving forward but still looks super duper sweet. But either way back to Honsik, back to the health with Huberto coming back with Honsik coming back probably pretty soon especially for Honsik. You know that does bring in the competition and brings up the question of you know the roster spots. Who do they take over for? Do they get in specifically? And there's one thing that Ryan Husk is saying is he says I think I think the competition is... is a good thing and it absolutely it makes players earn their spots more but we've been loving seeing some of these younger guys come in you know you think of obviously Sunyev who didn't crack the lineup originally but everyone hopes he's with us for the rest of the way Jonathan Castagna who just seems like such a great player he's been playing phenomenally obviously not the most you know offensive producer um but He just brings so many more elements to the game. We've been loving seeing Stromgren come in and score a couple goals as well, but he's most certainly out. You know, it's interesting, but it does bring in this good competition. Does Huberto have a spot locked up? You would think so based off of his contract, but it's a little bit more difficult. Now with these kind of two roads back here for Huberto, And Hanzik. So Huberto was actually skating regular or sorry, skating in a regular jersey for the first time back on November 6th, which was obviously a week ago today. And then just a couple of days ago, as we know, Huberto and Hanzik were skating fully and Hanzik was assigned to the Wranglers. So we'll have to see how long he kind of has this, I guess, AHL conditioning stint. Now, Pat Steinberg actually released an article, I believe it was yesterday on the Calgary Herald, and it kind of went over the same idea of these guys are going to be healthy soon. Who does that kick out? And, you know, he suggested maybe a conditioning stint for Huberto as well, which would be really interesting. I'm not fully sure how that works out. In terms of Hanzik, his stats so far this season in the NHL, he's only played four games. So obviously all of those are going to be read on our little digest media. meter here to show how much he's done but you know no points so far this season just a couple shots so it's it is a little bit difficult but what does that mean for the log jam this is where it kind of comes into play here so the projected forward depth by position so left wings there's so many there's Farabee there's Huberto so once he's healthy he's back in Gritten Hanzik Hoffman Stromgren now a lot of these guys can play either wing kind of thing you know Farabee and Gritten are guaranteed to be in there and you would think Huberto is as well of course But what does that leave for Hanzik, Offman, Stromgren? You would think Hanzik, based off of, you know, just how he's a former first-round pick, cracked the lineup to open the season and unfortunately has just gone through these injuries. At center, it's probably our least deep position group, but Frost, Backlund, Pospisil, Castagna, Strom, and Zeri. So Strom and Zeri are just kind of thrown in there because they can play there. Same with guys like Pospisil. You know, a lot of these guys see a lot of time on the wing. The main staples at center would be Frost, Backlund, and Castagna, and then we obviously see other guys in there as well. Well, at right wing, Coronado, Sharkey, Sunyev, Klapka, and Siplikov. So at least, you know, one of those guys would kind of be out. You would assume it's Siplikov. And then we've seen Ben Jones come up as well. It creates a bit of a logjam once Huberto and Hanzik are healthy. Who do you choose out of those guys, especially since they're both technically left wings? I mean, the wings, again, they really play both sides, especially for a team like the Flames. It seems like the lines are different every game, but it's interesting that, you know, who do you pick? Also, what I was thinking of is in terms of the power play unit. I love this, the look of this new graph, or graphic, I should say. You know, our top unit on the power play this year has been excellent at 60 or sorry. They play 64% of the time that we have a power play, which is great, and they've been awesome. We've had a lights-out power play so far this year, top five in the league. You bring Huberto in, does he go on that top unit? Does he take a spot away from one of those guys? I would assume the answer's no, and I hope the answer is no, and he would probably go in in the second unit somewhere, but if Sunyev's no longer in, does he take that spot? Does he maybe take it away from like a Strom or a Sharangovich? They really like having Klapka in front because he's huge, but there are so many questions To answer here when it comes to just, you know, what do we do once these guys are healthy? And it is a little bit of a headache. That's why there's almost just too much going on with the Flames. It's better when you have maybe a couple of players out. So it makes, you know, the coach's decision easier when it comes to the lineup. But there are a few guys, again, who maybe they won't, you know, be in the NHL anymore once these guys are healthy. So we're going to take a look at a couple of cases to stay. And the first one, we've mentioned him already in this video. But it is, of course, Idar. Sunya, who I absolutely do not think should go back down to the Wranglers. I would love to see him stay. He's just, you know, obviously he's not scoring every game and his ice time has been way down and maybe he's a little bit beat up after taking that big hit in the last game, but he's so exciting when he has the puck in the offensive zone. You know, there's always that little feeling that they could score, of course. So. This is him so far this year. I don't know what's going on there. So yeah, he has six points on the year with four goals, which is obviously good on a team that has struggled to score over the past few seasons here. His shooting percentage is elite compared to the rest of the league. He's very much up there, 113th in the league. He's pretty dang good for a guy that not many people know outside of the Flames. So I would absolutely love to see him stay. I think he's absolutely earned it. He has a case to stay, and he's proven that. You know, it was ridiculous that he didn't make it out of training camp. I think all of us after the preseason were hoping it would be him. Obviously, they chose to go with Manor Ciliakov instead. But yeah, he absolutely has a case to stay. The one thing, again, is that his ice time has been down a lot lately. I don't know if part of that is that Huska doesn't trust him as much anymore. He did, you know, look injured in that second period against the Rangers and didn't really play much after that game. I think only just a few hits, or sorry, a few shifts. So, yeah, not sure what's going on there. I wouldn't be shocked now because of this, you know, glaring stat if he is left out as, you know, kind of an odd man out once these other guys are kind of back in. His case to stay again, how would he stay? He just needs to keep a scoring role available in that top nine. You know, you consider scratching another winger. For him, I would much rather have him in than some of our other wingers, but that's just my personal opinion. And then an AHL assignment remains an option because he's waiver-exempt. That's another key thing here of why it just makes sense if he is sent down. Again, I don't think that's what he wants. I don't think that's what the fans want, but logistically, it just does make sense because you are not risking losing him. So obviously, that makes sense. The other case for staying is Castagna. Now, thankfully for him, he's at the center. position and obviously Huberdeau and Hansik aren't centers. You never know who's going to be a center on this team but hopefully he stays as well. Now again his offensive production not going to be you know knock anyone out of their socks here. It's more so what he does you know Off the puck, it's the defensive game, it's the face-offs, it's not always the points, obviously doesn't have a goal yet, would love to see him get a goal, but hopefully there's a case for him to stay as well if there is a big log jam, and again, the face-off circle is where it matters, he's over 50%, which is good, just barely, but you want to be there, pretty cool graphic here with all the stuff too in the offensive zone, in the neutral zone, the defensive zone, where he seems to take a lot of his face-offs, so again, the defensive. portion of that is very good and that's actually the zone he's the best in. You can see how he is against certain opponents as well but you know it's very important for this team. We know Craig Conroy is so adamant on needing to win face-offs and Castagna so far has been doing that so you know it's not always just the points that get you there. In terms of his ice time as well we saw a huge increase at some point. It's kind of leveled off again which is just normal for you know a A fourth liner, but he plays good minutes at 12 minutes per game over the last five games. And hopefully, you know, that continues. We don't want to see him, you know, lose out. So again, his path to stay, his case for staying is just keep the fourth line center job. And I think, again, that shouldn't be affected by Huberdeau and Hansik. You never know what Huska is kind of scheming up here. But hopefully he would keep that fourth line center job. You also preserve a shutdown option alongside Klavka. That's what they've been great doing. And then watch for Strome or Pospisil to kind of shift roles instead of Castagna doing that. So, if... Calgary can only dress one, who stays? Would you keep Sunyev, would you keep Castagna, or would you find room for both? There should be room for both since they're technically different positions, but obviously there is still a bit of a logjam, bit of a headache going on here, but hopefully it will sort itself out. And who knows when Huberdeau and Hansik will actually return. Hansik probably sooner than later. Who knows when Huberdeau will actually be back? Well, I'm sure we'll cover that again when the time comes. Now, let's get into the comment of the day to wrap up this video, as we love to do here on the channel. It comes from yesterday's video, of course. I hope I've been loud enough. Again, I'm totally recording at work. Don't tell my bosses. I'm not sure what the boss is. But this one goes over the most recent video over the Michkov rumors. I decided to go with a very simple comment here from Evan. Evan says, Michkov for a slightly used Huberto. No money retained, we'll just give you Huberdeau for Michkov, sounds like a fair trade. Obviously that's more the funny route than actually what you think would be a fair trade. But that was a very interesting video. It seems kind of split. A lot of people would love to go for him. A lot of people wouldn't. And. He would be a big price to pay for a guy who might be a little bit disgruntled and has been slightly disappointing so far in his NHL career. So overall, it's definitely a conversation that will continue until he either signs with Philly or gets traded away. And I'm sure we'll probably be talking about it lots again in the future. 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.