Some thoughts on the Calgary Flames' opening night loss to the Edmonton Oilers:
1) Juuso Valimaki was really impressive in his debut wearing Flames colors. He was able to get a shot through a lot of traffic on his goal, made smart decisions with the puck, and did a nice job of preventing easy entries for Edmonton forwards. In a game that featured several quality defense prospects, I thought Valimaki stood out the most. It wasn't hard to tell he played a lot of hockey this summer.
2) If Mark Jankowski is NHL-ready, he should be able to have his way with a team made up of prospects. That was the case. The entire top line -- Andrew Mangiapane, Spencer Foo, and Jankowski -- looked good but Jankowski was the best of the bunch. He created some nice chances on the power play, showed good hands around the net, hit a crossbar, and scored a nice goal going top shelf from a distance.
Mark Jankowski picks the top corner to put #flames up 2-1 before the end of the 2nd#YoungStars pic.twitter.com/w7W4VfSsqu
— Ryan Biech (@ryanbiech) September 9, 2017
3) Things fell apart in the 3rd period -- some bounces went the other way -- but, for the most part, Tyler Parsons looked good. He showed impressive athleticism going post-to-post to make a couple stops he probably shouldn't have and was very comfortable between the pipes.
4) Slimmed down Rasmus Andersson quietly had a solid game. There isn't really a spot open on the right-side but I still think he's going to make things interesting in main camp. He can play.
5) Though the game was sloppy at times, especially early on, it was still great to watch competitive hockey again. I think the latter two games will be easier on the eyes now that some of the rust has been knocked off and these guys have their legs underneath them.
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