The Calgary Flames defence core already looks strong for this upcoming season. And they’ll be continuing to add to that in the coming years.
This off-season, some conversations surrounding the league is the Calgary Flames blue-line. With the addition of Travis Hamonic, their defence is solid and dangerous. They’re easily in the top three in the league for their top-four. And with the re-signing of Michael Stone as that fifth defenceman, the Flames have arguably the best all around defence core in the league.
But this is the now. What about the future? Well, looks like we may not have to worry about that with some of the defence prospect names flying around. One being Adam Fox.
Fox is a Flames prospect currently playing with Harvard University in the NCAA where they were the ECAC champions this past season. The Flames selected him at the 66th overall pick, even though he was ranked to go about 15-30 spots higher by basically every scouting report. So the Flames really lucked out with him.
Blue Line Station
And he continues to prove that.
Just these past few weeks, he was one of six Flames prospects to participate in the World Junior Summer Showcase. NHL.com put him in the top ten players who impressed during the WJSS. He had nine points and a +3 rating in five games. He was on that first pairing for team blue on Team USA and was tied in the lead for points among all skaters at the WJSS with those nine points.
Team USA’s head coach Bob Motzko was impressed as well.
Via NHL.com:
"He’s taking it to another level. Last year he was a designated hitter on our team, coming off the bench from an offensive standpoint and making plays for us. He’s at a whole other level for us right now. … He’s comfortable now playing the game in any situation for 60 minutes. That’s a pretty special player. We all see it from the offensive side but he can handle tough minutes too."
This isn’t his first rodeo playing internationally. Just this past January, him and Team USA won the World Junior Gold Medal at the IIHF World Junior Championship. He had four points in seven games. He’s definitely improved since then and he’ll definitely be a top pairing for Team USA this upcoming World Juniors.
Just this past season with Harvard, he had 40 points in 35 games which led all NCAA defencemen, even though he was only in his freshman year. He also helped his team win the Beanpot title (annual hockey competition between the four Boston schools), which is their first in 24 years. Safe to say he’s somewhat of a good luck charm, hey?
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The Calgary Flames definitely walked away with a steal at the 2016 draft and hopefully in a couple years time when he makes the NHL, it’ll pay off.