The Calgary Flames are enjoying an unexpectedly great start to the new season and things are going equally as smoothly down in the AHL.
Despite going into the season with low expectations, the Flames are currently undefeated in regulation through their first five games, sporting a 4-0-1 record and sitting pretty in fifth place in the entire NHL.
Down in the AHL, things have gone pretty much the same for the Calgary Wranglers. The team boasts an impressive bunch of young players who have been lighting up the net. The team is first in the Pacific Division with a 4-1-0 record and have three players tied for the AHL scoring lead.
The Wranglers’ Rory Kerins, Walker Duehr, and Jakob Pelletier are all tied for first place in the AHL for points with eight apiece. Five other players are tied for second with seven points.
TheAHL.com
Kerins, a sixth-round selection by the Flames in 2020, has been scorching hot since being sent down to the AHL to start the season. He managed to score at over a goal-per-game pace early on, tallying seven goals and one assist. That has him at the top of the AHL goal-scoring charts. He is nearly halfway to his AHL career-high of 16 goals that he hit in 54 games last season.
Following behind him is Duehr, who is showing a streak of offensive productivity that he hasn’t quite been able to muster throughout his professional career. He appeared in 40 NHL games with the Flames last season but only managed two goals and seven points in that span. His AHL high in points is 26, set with the Wranglers in 2022-23. He’s well on his way to breaking that plateau this season with five goals and three assists so far.
Lastly, the player that Flames fans should be most pleased about is Jakob Pelletier, who was unable to break the NHL roster in training camp and is starting to enter bust territory for a first-round pick selected all the way back in 2019. He has got no goals so far but has proven to be an excellent playmaker with eight assists in five games.
Flames fans should be sitting back and enjoying this wonderful start to the season. It doesn’t currently appear that many problems are occurring throughout the entire organization. While playoffs shouldn’t be expected, this is certainly better than where almost everyone had the team.