Calgary Flames

Portland Winterhawks coach Travis Green must have felt a bit of déjà vu watching his team Monday night at the MasterCard Memorial Cup. For the second straight game he saw a multi-goal lead evaporate, but the first-year coach -- promoted to the ...

The NHL Combine takes place May 27 - June 1 in Toronto, ON with 86 North American players and 15 European prospects invited. The Combine is split into two parts; the interview process runs May 27-30 while the fitness testing portion takes place...

A few random thoughts on the world championships, memorial cup and how the Flames draft picks are settling out.WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND-UPFive Flames-related players headed over to Scandinavia for the World Hockey Championships this month. Two of them are coming home with hardware.Jiri Hudler's Czech Republic team finished in seventh place. Hudler had five points in eight games. T.J. Brodie donned the maple leaf for the first time as part of Canada's World Championship entry, but he had just a single point in the seven games he played. Canada finished fifth.The Finns made the medal round but bowed out in the bronze medal game, finishing fourth. Finnish back-up Joni Ortio had a good tournament, going undefeated in three starts with a 1.98 goals against average and a .897 save percentage.Chris Butler put a slight silver lining on his so-so season with a bronze medal. Wait, shouldn't that have been a bronze lining? Anyhow, Butler had two points in 10 games for Team USA.Finally, prospective Flames back-up Reto “Yogi” Berra showed that he has the chops to be a world-class back-up goaltender with the Swiss. He won a silver medal, going 4-0 in his four starts with a 1.00 goals against and an amazing .967 save percentage. Granted, it's “just” the Worlds, but it was pretty great for him.MEMORIAL CUP-DATEMeanwhile, in Saskatoon, the last meaningful hockey of the junior season is taking place in the form of the Memorial Cup tournament. Two Flames prospects are vying for the CHL's top prize. Saskatoon has split a pair of games, with Michael Ferland posting two assists thus far. He's been physical, too. The Blades finish their round robin play on Wednesday night against Portland.Speaking of Portland, they've played once and Flames prospect Tyler Wotherspoon has zero points in a single game – which the Hawks dropped to the Halifax Mooseheads by a 7-4 score. They play tonight against the London Knights and then again Wednesday against the Blades.If Portland wins tonight, all four teams are 1-1 after two games and things will get interesting. If Portland loses, they drop to 0-2 and basically disappear from contention already. High stakes.FLAMES DRAFT PICKSWell, the Blues are out. And the Penguins have a lead. What does this mean? Presuming, as I will do here, that the Kings, Blackhawks, Bruins and Penguins will be in the conference finals, here's what will happen.- Calgary's own pick remains at 6th overall.-St. Louis' first rounder would be 22nd overall.- Pittsburgh's first rounder would be one of the last four picks, between 27th and 30th overall.If the Penguins lose, though, because Chicago is the only remaining division winning team that finished ahead of them, the best that Flames fans can hope to draft with their pick is 25th or 26th. Best case is probably Chicago and Pittsburgh losing, in terms of draft picks. If that happened, the Flames would pick 6th, 20th and 25th.Govern your cheering accordingly.FGD WRITER RECORDS!And on a lighter note, I (finally) tabulated the season's FGD records sorted by writer. Based on who wrote the game preview, here's how the Flames did.I went 9-8-1, boasting a .500 winning percentage. BookofLoob was tied in winning percentage, at 1-1-0. Justin Azevedo went 3-4-1 (for a .375 winning percentage), while Nations overlord Kent Wilson went 4-8-2 for a woeful .285 winning percentage. Only Vintage Flame (0-3-0) was worse.Collectively, the FN writing crew went 17-24-4. The OilerNation guest writers produced two Flames wins in the three games they previewed for us.IF I WERE DRAFTINGFinally, if I were drafting as Flames GM, with the 6th, 22nd and 30th picks, here's who I would grab.At 6th overall: Sean Monahan, from the Ottawa 67s. He's big, a center and has experience being a good player on a bad team. Much like how I enjoyed Brett Kulak carrying the mail in Vancouver (as I think it helps his development), the same can be said for Monahan in Ottawa.At 22nd overall: Morgan Klimchuk, from the Regina Pats. For one, he

Russian goalie Andrey Makarov made 29 saves to lead the Saskatoon Blades to a 5-2 victory against the heavily favored Halifax Mooseheads on Sunday in round-robin play at the 2013 MasterCard Memorial Cup before 8,934 fans at Credit Union Centre in ...

Nathan MacKinnon showed once again why he's the top offensive player available for the 2013 NHL Draft. The Halifax Mooseheads center, No. 2 on NHL Central Scouting's final ranking of North American skaters for this year's draft, showcased his f...

CALGARY, AB -- Switzerland's run at the 2013 IIHF World Championships came to an end in the gold medal game as they fell to Sweden 5-1. Heading into the game, Switzerland won nine straight games and secured themselves the country's first silver...

CALGARY, AB -- The Saskatoon Blades opened the scoring in the first game of the Memorial Cup tournament but fell 3-2 to the London Knights on Friday. 2013 NHL Draft prospect Nikita Zadorov scored the game-winner in the third period, jumping on ...

CALGARY, AB -- After Martin Gerber stood tall against the Czech Republic on Thursday in the quarter-finals, Switzerland head coach Sean Simpson had a tough decision to make: go with Gerber in the semi-final or let Reto Berra take the reins. He ...

Yesterday we discussed Taylor Cammarata as a potential mid-round target of the Flames this coming draft. We'd like to profile all of the org's targets, but of course that's not possible.Instead, share in the comments who you think the Flames will be looking at after the first round this year and we'll try to cover them here at FN. Keep in mind the franchise has started to fish for prospects in college and USHL a lot more these days, although they have still been very active in the CHL as well. Six of the Calgary's 12 picks under Jay Feaster have come from the WHL and QMJHL, while the rest is almost completely drawn from USHL and HS/college development programs (5 picks), with the notable exception of Markus Granlund (SM-Liiga).With those habits in mind, take a look at some draft rankings and determine who you think the Flames have on their draft chart.

photo by: Steph Regenold/USA TodayWhile the 6th overall pick will obviously be the most important done made by the team at the draft next month, it's important to keep in mind that the club has two other picks inside the top 30 and nine picks overall. Which means the Flames scouts have a lot more work on their hands than simply deciding between Elis Lindholm and Sean Monahan.Trying to anticipate picks in the mid-to-late rounds is a fools errand. The field widens considerably and teams start making picks based on a couple of viewings or a passing familiarity. That said, sometimes a few interesting prospects pop up who fit an organizational need or profile. In the darkhorse series, we'll take a look at some of these kids.First up, the next "Johnny Gaudreau" - Taylor Cammarata.Who?I had never heard of John Gaudreau when the Flames called his name in the 4th round back in 2012, but I got familiar with him pretty quickly. Taylor Cammarata is a player built in almost the exact same mould: tiny (5'6", 150 pounds), a USHL graduate and an offensive whiz kid.Like many elite prospects, Cammarata was groomed as a youngster by Shattuck St. Mary's. In his second season there on the Midget U16 team, he scored 71 goals and 139 points in just 54 games. To put those numbers in perspective, Sidney Crosby scored 72 goals and 162 points in 57 games in the same program at the same age.Cammarata graduated to the USHL Waterloo Blackhawks from there, which is where he has spent the last two seasons. He was an immediate impact player for the club, scoring at a better than point-per-game pace (67 in 60) as a rookie. This past season he was the team's leading scorer with 38 goals and 93 points in just 57 games. Again, for context, Johnny Hockey scored 36 goals and 70 points in 60 games in his draft season.The NHLE (NHL equivalence) translation factor for the USHL is about 0.25, meaning Cammarata's NHLE is about 0.41 points-per-game, or 33 points over an 82 game season. That's the same NHLtranslation as Calgary's first round target Sean Monahan, and better than more than half the guys who will be picked in the top-30 this coming June. It's an astoshingly good number.Scouting ReportsLike Gaudreau, Cammarata's scouting report is dominated by notes of his offensive abilities and concerns about his size. From Justin Schreiber of the Scouting Report:Cammarata is great skater and is very quick and nimble on his feet. He has the ability to find the soft spots in the offensive zone and exploit the defensive breakdowns he causes by getting “lost in the crowd” with his small frame. Cammarata can get from anywhere in the offensive zone to any other point in the zone lightning quick and defensemen often lose track of him. His shot is a big strength. It’s unusual to see a guy with such a small frame with a booming wrist shot, but Cammarata’s got it. Vision in the offensive zone has also been a big strength with him making the right passes at the right times. I’ve had the pleasure of watching Cammarata play five times this season starting at the Fall Classic in September and he’s continuously gotten better in every viewing. ... As for weaknesses in Cammarata’s game, his biggest weakness is obviously his size. 5-foot-6 is definitely not what coaches and scouts look for in a player, but there’s a guy who comes around every now and again where his skill outweighs his size. I firmly believe Cammarata is that guy. Just like Rocco Grimaldi a year ago, people have been doubting Cammarata all his playing career, but he just keeps impressing at every level he plays at. Cammarata still hasn’t really developed a solid defensive game yet either. He is very much focused on his play in the offensive zone, and it’s been paying off, but Cammarata doesn’t seem to back check all that much.Being tiny and one dimensional is obviously an issue, but the Flames took a chance on a very similar player in Gaudreau two drafts ago and he's now firmly considered one of the best prospects in the or